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Adaptive, scriptable universal Remote Control

stebu

There is a ton of remote controls laying around in my living room. Depending on what I like to watch, play or listen to I need to use several of them in the right order, pressing key sequences over and over again. For example: switch on TV change to the right input, activate AV-receiver set it to the right mode, activate media streaming device/console and set it to the right mode...

And while its inconvinient, it turns out that for some family members (especially older and youber once) its almost unrulable.

 

Of course there are some universal remote controls out there, but most of them lacking the ability of ease of use and especially to automate key-sequences as needed. Even more, most of them have dozents of keys, each of them overloaded with several functions depending on the individual mode there are in. That doesn't really make things easier.

 

What I have in mind is a device with a big touchscreen, with virual keys that are reduced to a relevent miniumun and can adopt according to the relevant mode and/or user preferences.

And when it comes to reproducable key sequences it would be just great to habe the ability to record some kind of script or macro that can be stored and re-used by the press of one virtual key on the touch screen.

 

One challenge in that context is not only to support IR-based remote controls but also bluetooth based once, like controllers of consoles.

  • The likes of AMX and Crestron have automation solutions that will give you a large touch display and allow you to program them to sequence control commands in virtually any way you require and present the control options on a virtual surface.

     

    Rather than being a universal remote though, they generally talk back to a central controller which then is programmed to talk to the individual devices being controlled.

     

    The downside is that they are very expensive for what they are and I'm surprised that more home-grown maker solutions haven't appeared.

     

    With the rapid growth in mobile devices though then I suspect more people will expect to control devices from their smart phone or tablet than route around for a universal control unit though.

     

    IR is generally avoided for reliable control systems though as it is one way communication and thus you can't get feedback from the device to report its status Control over   and more recently over Ethernet is generally favoured but not always found on domestic equipment I've not seen Bluetooth used much for this as unlike IR it relies upon device pairing in order to establish communication so often you end up with a  RS-232RS-232 to Bluetooth dongle for each device pairing as the central controller may be listening for feedback from one device whilst transmitting to another so both links need to be established