MCE Remote FINTEK eHome Infrared Transceiver 1934:5168 and lirc

I bought the "OEM HP MCE KIT REMOTE CONTROL/USB IR RECEIVER/EMITTER" from amazon after seeing comments it was plug and play with MythTV. Turns out not so much, at least for the version I'm running on Ubuntu lucid.

lsusb looked like this, I was expecting some sort of device manufacturer strings, so that seemed ominous:

$ lsusb
[snip]
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 1934:5168  

and in syslog:

kernel: [ 1005.516531] usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
kernel: [ 1005.691272] usb 4-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

I followed the ubuntu community doco to add my remote to the lirc src and install the new module. The patch was:

--- /usr/src/lirc-0.8.6/drivers/lirc_mceusb/lirc_mceusb.c.old 2012-04-21 14:48:41.000000000 -0700
+++ /usr/src/lirc-0.8.6/drivers/lirc_mceusb/lirc_mceusb.c 2012-04-21 15:07:57.000000000 -0700
@@ -210,6 +210,8 @@
  { USB_DEVICE(VENDOR_FINTEK, 0x0602) },
  /* Fintek eHome Infrared Transceiver (in the AOpen MP45) */
  { USB_DEVICE(VENDOR_FINTEK, 0x0702) },
+ /* HP MCE */
+ { USB_DEVICE(VENDOR_FINTEK, 0x5168) },
  /* Pinnacle Remote Kit */
  { USB_DEVICE(VENDOR_PINNACLE, 0x0225) },
  /* Elitegroup Computer Systems IR */

Remove the old stuff, build and install the new, restart lirc:

sudo dkms remove -m lirc -v 0.8.6 --all
sudo dkms add -m lirc -v 0.8.6
sudo dkms -m lirc -v 0.8.6 build
sudo dkms -m lirc -v 0.8.6 install
sudo /etc/init.d/lirc restart

And you should see a syslog line like this when you plug it in:

kernel: [ 3713.864034] lirc_mceusb[5]: FINTEK eHome Infrared Transceiver on usb4:5

The /etc/lirc/hardware.conf should look like:

#Chosen Remote Control
REMOTE="DViCO_Dual_Digital"
REMOTE_MODULES="lirc_dev lirc_mceusb"
REMOTE_DRIVER=""
REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/lirc0"
REMOTE_LIRCD_CONF="dvico/lircd.conf.fusionHDTV"
REMOTE_LIRCD_ARGS=""

Test with 'irw' and pressing some buttons. For some reason I had to change the remote name everywhere in my ~/.lirc/mythtv and ~/.lirc/mplayer to what irw thought it was (DViCO_Utraview).

And, it works! I'm certainly not the only person struggling with this IR receiver, but apparently it is supported by the new kernel driver.