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The SofaBaton X2 universal remote can send IP commands, but cannot authenticate with systems requiring HTTP Basic Authentication — such as the Fibaro Home Center 2 (HC2). This article presents a compact, PoE powered gateway based on the Waveshare ESP32 S3 POE ETH module, enabling seamless control of Fibaro dimmers and lights from the SofaBaton X2.

Modern universal remotes increasingly support IP‑based control, but compatibility issues remain. When integrating a SofaBaton X2 with a Fibaro HC2 lighting system, I encountered a fundamental limitation: the remote cannot send HTTP requests containing authentication headers.
Fibaro, however, requires:
Authorization: Basic base64(login:password)
This made direct control impossible.

To bridge this gap, I developed a dedicated IP gateway that:

  • Accepts simple unauthenticated HTTP commands from the SofaBaton
  • Adds the required authentication
  • Forwards the request to the Fibaro HC2
  • Provides visual feedback using the onboard RGB LED
  • Runs reliably thanks to PoE and wired Ethernet
See aditional text for the details !