TV Remote with a TWIST!

[Guest nedge2k]

So, out of everyone who belives it to be possible...who's gonna make one?

[Guest MoRFLeZ]

So, out of everyone who belives it to be possible...who's gonna make one?

](*,)

[Guest fozzie]

........now if i can only use my tv remote to make a call...... that would be the day.

It must be possible - it's got IR and keys - the same as a phone :)

[Guest meatgrinder]

lol Morflez + fozzie

its just a matter of time :) - sum1 must be able to do it :D

[Guest Pondrew]

:)

[Guest mike-oh]

I have an idea, it might just work....!!!

I'l post back with my findings over the weekend :)

[Guest XRay]

1. that the infra-red transmitter built into these phones is physically capable of sending out infra-red pulses.  

The problem here is a matter of practicality. Yes, both phones and PPCs use IrDA. Yes, the fact is that IrDA CAN be made to control home Audio/Video equipment.

Unfortunately, IrDA is very limited in range and is also very directive. This is why you must 'align ports' and be very close to another's Phone/PPC in order to 'beam' something to it. In order to control a device with IrDA (i.e. from my iPaq), I must point directly at the device and stand about 1 foot away. (This is true, I tested it.) That sort of defeats the purpose when you consider the fact that my arms are more than 1 foot long. :)

The way to overcome this with a PPC is to use an add on CF IR extender such as this: http://www.ultramote.com/extender.php . I use something very similar to this with an iPaq 3600 and it works very well even at 30 - 40 feet away. Alternatively, the iPaq 39xx series came with Consumer IR built in, in addition to the standard IrDA.

Of course, you also need software to do this. A few titles are available for PPC. I use this: http://www.pdawin.com/ . With Smartphone, a developer would have the additional considerations of screen size and the lack of a touch screen.

You can find out more about PPC hardware/software solutions here:

http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin/mboar...rc-pda/list.cgi

So for those of you who really want this to happen, follow these two easy steps:

1. Build an SD IR transmitter card. (hmm.. this would stick out of the side of my phone)

2. Develop software that will deal with the challenges of limited screen real estate and limited user access.

There you have it. It's a piece of pie!

Regards. Jay.

[Guest phonesmarts]

Why don't they just invent BT TVs, w/ BT remotes... :twisted: :twisted:

[Guest mike-oh]

Err, post didn't work properly.

[Guest kjk]

:-& :-#

[Guest meatgrinder]

lol Mike-ohalloran, genius! :D

but, if peeps didnt try, we'd have nothin! :)

Dave

[Guest felixdd]

power to you man! If you need a beta tester you got one right here!

Seriously -- instead of saying no...we should try first. Hell, there are even TV remote watches on the market. And the native IR port on even old Palm IIIs can be used to control VCRs -- you just gotta aim well.

[Guest Pleh]

I bought a spv e200 on monday and im going to try and make this program when i get home, i have some sample source code i got from somewhere that might be able to help me, but dont all get too excited because im going to be doing it in eVC and im more of a visual basic man :)

Here is how i want it to work

You will have 2 modes, Record and Play

First you press record on the phone and point your remote at the phone and press a button, next you press stop on the phone, at this point it will save the recieved packets to a file that can be loaded later.

Next you asign a saved packet dump to a key on the phone and when you press it it sends the coresponding saved packet out.

It sounds simple but i bet its really not

[Guest jack_561]

You that deserve an award =D>

[Guest meatgrinder]

hehe, lets hope it works ! :)

good luck Pleh ( from waht i've been told, you'll need it, lol )

Dave

[Guest spludgey]

Ok first off does anyone know whether the the IR wavelengths of tv remotes and smartphones are the same? If not it might be impossible to do whitout changing the LED. I still believe that there is some way that it will work, even if you have to replace the LED to one out of a remote control, however this might also mean that you might not be able to use IR in the way it was designed to be used any more.

[Guest Pondrew]

Ok first off...

:D Bit late m8, this thread started a VERY long time ago.

Reminds me of that annoying tune... 'This is the song that never ends...'

[Guest MECX]

Ok first off does anyone know whether the the IR wavelengths of tv remotes and smartphones are the same? If not it might be impossible to do whitout changing the LED. I still believe that there is some way that it will work, even if you have to replace the LED to one out of a remote control, however this might also mean that you might not be able to use IR in the way it was designed to be used any more.

Apprantly its not the actual LED but the surrounding electronics of the IRDA that is making impossible to output consumer IR.

A couple of people in the know think it might be possible to write a program in assembler but it would require detailed knowlege of accessing the ports--which i think only HTC could provide.

oh and it would take a damn long time to do and since the range is a metre at most its almost pointless.

This topic has been discussed to death and i dont think ive said anything new ---i think there was a thread on a developer forum , a google might turf it out---good look to anyone giving it a go tho wont hold my breath

:D

[Guest Alex_le_brit]

........now if i can only use my tv remote to make a call...... that would be the day.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You can, Bang and Olafssen make one, have you not watched Graham Norton?

[Guest lekus]

I've worked a lot with IR hardware and software and can tell you why I don’t think it’s possible.

Consumer IR (CIR) as used in most TV/Video/DVD remotes across the global, transmits on a specific frequency called the carrier frequency. This is usually in the range of 36-40Khz.

The HTC Typhoon uses Serial IR (SIR) to transmit data at higher rates than CIR and as such is designed for two-way transmission involving data acknowledgment and error correction capability if desired.

For the Typhoon to LEARN the codes from a CIR remote, it would have to be able to demodulate the signal it receives so as to be left with the binary data being sent from the remote.

This cannot be done because:

a) The Typhoon doesn't have the hardware to demodulate CIR signals correctly. If it did, the demodulator would likely be tied to a specific carrier frequency anyway, so would not sample remotes outside its range very well.

:( Even if it could demodulate the signal, the nature of IRDA means that the signal would get misinterpreted. Certain 1's and 0's would be treated as data designed to signify the start or end of an IRDA data packet.

Even if the signal could be read, for it to be transmitted out from a Typhoon you would have to know what carrier signal it had originally been sampled on to get the signal to work properly with your TV, etc. 99% of people would not know this, although it could be found by guess work or using an oscilloscope. Not that this matters given the two points above.

The alternative would be if the Typhoon contained a photo-diode, which could then be used to sample a CIR signal without the need for demodulation. The Typhoon doesn't have such hardware however and I wouldn't expect it to.

So SIR can receive CIR transmissions, but it doesn't receive the "right" data from them.

Now on to TRANSMITTING CIR signals from the Typhoon.

To send CIR data over IRDA, the data must either be:

a) Prepared in such a way as to "mimic" a CIR carrier frequency (and hence the data) over IRDA.

:D Again prepared before hand and sent out via a "raw" mode on the IRDA port.

As mentioned above, the nature of IRDA hardware is that of reliable communication. When you send a packet of data to the IRDA hardware, it will add more information to that packet BEFORE it is sent out. This is where option (a) above can be used. If the IRDA hardware can be set up to the correct timings, etc, so that, with the correct data patterns sent out it will mimic a carrier wave, then CIR signals can be sent.

The alternative (:D is that the IRDA hardware allows raw data to pass through. The only IRDA hardware capable of handling this is hardware which can change into a CIR-like mode I think. I am 99% sure the C500 hardware does not have such functionality (although it can be found in various IRDA solutions). It would have been listed as a feature were it so.

Both of these solutions require that the carrier wave of the signal being transmitted is known and that (for example) an array of bytes is constructed which represents the data on that carrier wave. This is what would be sent via the IRDA port.

I suggest anyone interested in this reads the LIRC HowTo: http://howtos.linux.com/howtos/Infrared-HO...lirc-irda.shtml

It has a section which covers CIR over SIR transmission.

The reason why I believe it is not possible on the Typhoon is that it does not have a raw transmission mode and that there is no direct access to the serial IRDA hardware/UART to allow it's timings, etc, to be set up. Even if there were some sort of DMA access on the phone, I am not even sure that the IRDA port is controlled by a conventional UART setup (if at all?), so I do not think there is a possibility to change the way it transmits anyway.

Hope that helps.

[edit] As for IR via the headphone/hands free socket - that would work fine, but then you've got a little thing poking out of your phone :/ :lol:

Edited February 16, 2005 by lekus

[Guest chucky.egg]

This one just won't die will it?

[waiting for meatgrinder to come back and call us lazy again]

[Guest Pondrew]

This is the song that never ends...

...it just goes on and on my friends!