What would be involved in a droid tv remote?

[lucidstate]

I would like to control my tv and fios box from my droid. I'm pretty sure there is no way to do it yet, but I'm curious as to what it would take. Obviously an app would need to be written, but what about hardware? I've read that the droid has an IR emitter/receiver for shutting off the display when you have it held to your ear. Would the signal from this be too weak, assuming you could even hack it in the first place? Could you buy a seperate "IR blaster" that hooks into the 3.5mm jack or usb port? If that's not possible, could you connect to a computer (through wifi) that has an IR emitter hooked up to it? Could I hack my tv and/or fios box to recieve wifi signals, thus bypassing any need for IR? I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to this stuff. I'm just throwing out ideas.

 

[romeov]

I would like to control my tv and fios box from my droid. I'm pretty sure there is no way to do it yet, but I'm curious as to what it would take. Obviously an app would need to be written, but what about hardware? I've read that the droid has an IR emitter/receiver for shutting off the display when you have it held to your ear. Would the signal from this be too weak, assuming you could even hack it in the first place? Could you buy a seperate "IR blaster" that hooks into the 3.5mm jack or usb port? If that's not possible, could you connect to a computer (through wifi) that has an IR emitter hooked up to it? Could I hack my tv and/or fios box to recieve wifi signals, thus bypassing any need for IR? I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to this stuff. I'm just throwing out ideas.

The built in proximity sensor would not work. a usb addon might maybe but the coding and hardware involved would be astronomical and hugely bulky. The easiest way would be for a company to come up with a remote control IR type box that connects to your droid via bluetooth or wifi, and then they write an app that communicates with your droid and said box.

I could see a company doing it, but not for some time.

 

[Speeddymon]

I would like to control my tv and fios box from my droid. I'm pretty sure there is no way to do it yet, but I'm curious as to what it would take. Obviously an app would need to be written, but what about hardware? I've read that the droid has an IR emitter/receiver for shutting off the display when you have it held to your ear. Would the signal from this be too weak, assuming you could even hack it in the first place? Could you buy a seperate "IR blaster" that hooks into the 3.5mm jack or usb port? If that's not possible, could you connect to a computer (through wifi) that has an IR emitter hooked up to it? Could I hack my tv and/or fios box to recieve wifi signals, thus bypassing any need for IR? I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to this stuff. I'm just throwing out ideas.

The built in proximity sensor would not work. a usb addon might maybe but the coding and hardware involved would be astronomical and hugely bulky. The easiest way would be for a company to come up with a remote control IR type box that connects to your droid via bluetooth or wifi, and then they write an app that communicates with your droid and said box.

I could see a company doing it, but not for some time.

Actually.... You partially right. I've done some digging around today about this.

The first thing to remember is that if you go USB, the kernel would have to support your USB-to-IR device natively. Most likely, that won't be the case unless you root and install a custom kernel, and even then, there is no guarantee that you will be able to interface with the device from the Android API.

I scratched that off my list first thing when I thought about it.

I did manage to find a BT-to-IR blaster, but unfortunately, they are $60 each .. and I'm sure you can guess why... because you pay a horrendous royalty for it having Bluetooth. BOGUS! So even if you just wanted to have one, you would also still need software to talk over bluetooth to the device and send the signal to it for it to repeat the signal to the multimedia device(s).. Totally not worth it.

Now, wifi-to-ir is an interesting concept but there is a lot that would have to be taken into account in building the device (no i did not find any on the web, most likely because things like that are so niche, unfortunately.

It looks like the Droid probably won't ever have this capability, but whatever phone supports wireless usb in the future might though. :-(

 

[tonynalli]

i remeber seeing someone doing this with their ipod and it was pretty simple once you got the hang of it. they purchased a ir 1/8 phono plug off of ebay. and recorded the ir signal that the tv remote transmitted and labeled each signal indiviidually, you just add the files to a specific folder and everytime you play that recording your ir will play it back and viola. youll need griffins total remote which comes with the hardware and software that youll need. and youll need to set your recording settings to 44 Hz, 16bit Stereo. PCM...

 

[Tillers_Rule]

I would think an application could be developed for this. The phone has bluetooth so using that signal to control a device plugged in to one of the auxiliary inputs on the TV would work, as well as the TV itself.

 

[aaf709]

I would think an application could be developed for this. The phone has bluetooth so using that signal to control a device plugged in to one of the auxiliary inputs on the TV would work, as well as the TV itself.

Or possibly with the WiFi. There's an RC helicopter that'll be using WiFi on the iPhone. Could be something along those lines.

 

[iPirate]

I have 2 too many remotes on my coffee table. I'm interested in this

 

[kenc3dan]

I wonder...plug this in to the headphone jack and shoot recorded audio out to it.
Get the audio by recording the "audio" output going to your remotes IR LED?

SpeakerCraft - IR Emitter - IRE1.0

 

[born2golf]

I would like to control my tv and fios box from my droid. I'm pretty sure there is no way to do it yet, but I'm curious as to what it would take. Obviously an app would need to be written, but what about hardware? I've read that the droid has an IR emitter/receiver for shutting off the display when you have it held to your ear. Would the signal from this be too weak, assuming you could even hack it in the first place? Could you buy a seperate "IR blaster" that hooks into the 3.5mm jack or usb port? If that's not possible, could you connect to a computer (through wifi) that has an IR emitter hooked up to it? Could I hack my tv and/or fios box to recieve wifi signals, thus bypassing any need for IR? I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to this stuff. I'm just throwing out ideas.

There is already an APP for this made by Verizon FIOS!!! it is on the market and it is called FIOS Mobile Remote. There is also a separate app called verizon FIOS DVR which allows you to fully manage your DVR from the phone as well. You can schedule future recordings, delete recordings already on the DVR and view the TV listings all from your phone.

The remote control app works through the WiFi network in the house. You can configure all sorts of favorite channels and and it also lets you push your photos from the camera onto the TV screen which is pretty neat.

 

[takeshi]

I did manage to find a BT-to-IR blaster, but unfortunately, they are $60 each .. and I'm sure you can guess why... because you pay a horrendous royalty for it having Bluetooth.

$60 isn't even horrendous. Try $200+ for networked IR adapters suggested for use with totalcontrolapp's solution.