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IoT IR Programmable Transcoder - TV Remote on Steroids

One code goes in, another comes out… A different way of having a single remote without needing a universal one.

Background
You when something annoys you so much you just have to fix it especially if every one else nags you. Our television remote falls in this category, its a “Dick Smith” brand unit and has a dodgy intermittent remote. I’ve used universal remotes before and even after hours of programming them they are not so flash. So what to do? Our Panasonic DVR we use has a more than adequate universal section built in but in spite of talking to 100s of other devices our TV is not one of them. If only it spoke the lingo!

Arduino IR library and Nano on the job
Did you know with a couple of parts you can receive, analyse and send IR codes with even the smallest Arduino? So with not much more than the example sketch you can work out what codes in what protocol gets sent from your remote for each button. With a couple more lines of code you can send another code that you would like substituted for the the first code.

So in no time at all you have built yourself a transcoder. Receives codes of one remote and re-transmits them as if from another. “Piece of Pi” or maybe Arduino? I even put in the start of an overlay function so I can use all of the remote buttons for the TV if the original device is off, I used a RGB LED indicator to show when your in that mode to avoid user confusion.

Anyhow, all that is left now is to give the remote to family members to test and suggest while you watch for bugs.

The circuit
Very simple, due to the IR receiver doing a lot of the heavy lifting. It has the automatic gain control and many other items needed to successfully demodulate the 38 kHz signal that is passed to the Arduino. There is no current limmit resistor on the two IR LEDs. I was expecting scorch marks on the couch while testing but it seems to work fine at 5V with the LEDs I bought. Trying this was a response to what seemed a pathetic range at 20 ma, “More power Igor !”“

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