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Every Parents Dream! - A Challenge for Ben Heck

timryder

My name is Tim, I am a Controls Engineer, I design/program develop automation and robotics for a living. I have been following you for only 4 months now but I've watched everything you've made thus far and have LOVED IT!  I didn't go to school to learn Electrical Engineering I just picked up what I've learned on my own and through resources like you guys here at Element 14!  What a phenomenal program.  There are 2 parts to this e-mail.  I have dozens of ideas for devices I'd like to build and but just don't have the raw basic knowledge of the mass plethora of components out there.  I understand the electrical circuits and theories but the practical applications you can use many of the common IC's out there is where I'm lacking.  Like for example, a while ago on a show you mentioned that you had limited I/O available through an Arduino Uno, so to expand your capacity you added a Bit Shift Register IC which expanded your available I/O and you mentioned that you could basically expand it even more by adding more BSR IC's..... HOW!? This is what I'd love to see. A show dedicated to common components used in the electronics design industry and some uses for them.   This would expand my capabilities as a designer MUCH more.

 

Ok so my REAL challenge!

 

I am a father of 2 and 1 on the way.  I've had this idea for years that I just haven't been able to realize and I'd love to challenge you to make it work!

Design and build a device which can be programmed to record and playback IR commands from remote control devices like a TV or cable Box.  Then when called upon by pressing a kid friendly large button, playback those IR commands in order which will Turn On the TV and Cable Box, Change the Channel to a programmed one.  I think it would be necessary to have a key or some sort of button which would be needed in order to record the IR signals from the remote controls and a handy display to be used for programming it. I don't think you've ever done a show that features the use of IR sensors, this would be a neat one I think many people would repeat.

 

The overall idea is to make a device which would allow a small child 2-5 to be able to turn on their tv and watch their shows without a parents help.

 

What do think?

 

-Tim Ryder

  • One more note to this would be that it would have to limit the usage of this button to once until manually reset, otherwise the kid would be turning off and on the tv all the time which gets annoying!  Maybe a 2nd button could be implemented which can record a few different pre-programmed channels through IR commands and cycle through those when pressed? Limited usage again for this button maybe, 2-3 min intervals and it lights back up meaning you can use it again?

  • in reply to timryder

    You could alternatively take working remotes and tie an arduino to act as the button presses for an even lower tech solution :-)

  • in reply to colecago

    True but that really defeats the purpose of the device, I don't wish to destroy the original equipment, I simply would like to make a device which mimics their actions. Plus it doesn't seem as polished as what I think Ben could produce.

  • There is a library for Arduino to learn IR codes, not sure how in depth it is

    https://github.com/shirriff/Arduino-IRremote

    would be a good start for this project nonetheless.

  • I think this is a neat idea. Would be interested to see this.
    Tim, if this does not end up being featured, an alternative would be to buy a Logitech Revue or some other Google TV device with an IR transmitter embedded. Then you can get an app like Able Remote(android only) and program one button to turn on TV, Cable Box, and Receiver as well as change it to their favorite channel. This would allow you to press one button and do all of the actions from the comfort of your bed, requiring only a few seconds of your time and you wouldnt have to get up! As an aside, my two year old learned how to use the keyboard remote to turn everything on from watching us. If all else fails, try teaching them what to do.

  • There are some pretty advanced TV remotes out there [http://www.logitech.com/en-us/universal-remotes]. But I have been disappointed with most of them as they never know if a device is powered 'on'. This makes programming macros difficult. Does one always assume everything is on or off when putting together a macro? If you have to manually turn on many devices with the remove whats the point of the macro? So, If I may, I'd like to propose a "smart powerstrip' that knows how much power is being used per-plug. Then you can know if the device in plug 1 is on or not. The smart powerstrip could communicate this info to your custom remote, letting the remote know if it shold turn something on or not.

  • in reply to QuantumAberrant

    I knew that problem existed but wasn't too sure the best way to tackle that.  Your idea makes great sense!  Now we're making a cool product!  Ben Heck, you need to pick up this idea.

  • OK so the idea is a simple large button remote that turns on the TV and goes to a certain channel?

     

    Does it also turn off the TV?

     

    Current sensing could work. Also, if the TV has HDMI, you could probably detect the 5 volt line on that becoming active or something.

     

    Easy Kids Remote maybe? That could be the episode idea?

  • in reply to benheck

    Does it also turn off the TV?


    I think the idea is that it's smart enough to "turn everything on that is not on and turn everything off that is not off" when it needs to.

     

    How about "Super Easy Remote". I know everyone in my house would appreciate it, not just the kids.

  • in reply to benheck

    Hey Ben,

     

    Thanks for responding, Yeah that sounds like what I would like to see.  I thought about a big button that a small child can press, something with maybe a clear Lucite center which pulses or glows with PWM and when the kid presses it, it will execute the pre-programmed routine to turn on the TV then Cable Box then change to the correct channel so the busy (lazy) parent doesn't need to do it for them. A.K.A Every Parents Dream.

     

    Some nice features of it would be current sensing, either through the HDMI 5v line or inside a power strip housing where you can detect the current draw on the device plugged into the socket. I don't know if it would work for most cable boxes which use the brick power supply cause those are pretty much always running? At any rate, using some means of communicating back to the remote which devices are already powered on, the smart remote can skip that step of powering it up and move on to the channel changing part of the program.


    I mentioned earlier that I dont think it would be a good idea to turn off the devices by this remote because having a small childing constantly turning off and on your electronics all day would be very annoying.  So I imagined some sort of reset the parent could perform or better yet just use the feedback from the current sensor to determine if the device needs powering up before commanding it.  I don't know if an LCD would be necessary?  Maybe do you have any means of doing an OSD (On Screen Display) menu through HDMI? That'd be a very cool technology to showcase!  A Guide for setup of this smart controller which is displayed through the HDMI port to the TV? If that's a little too complex then a cheap 4x16 LCD would be cool for setup.

     

    The episode could be called "Easy Kids Remote" as you've mentioned, I like the sound of that.  image

     

    Thoughts?