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Using a PC as a Remote Control?

Posted by Cliff on from the controlling-it-all-from-your-laptop dept.

Dave2 Wickham asks: "I am interested in using one of my PCs as a remote control. The most likely candidate for this would be my laptop - which runs Windows XP (flame on, but I don't want to make any major changes in my last year of school). It has a standard IR port built in - nothing fancy. If there is, for some reason, no option for this, then is there any way for me to use my Live! Drive with LIRC on my Linux machine?" For those interested, Ask Slashdot handled the converse of this issue, in an article on controlling PCs with IR remotes.

8 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. IRDA vs IR by Niksie3 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Are you sure that you have an remote control style IR port built in? Most laptops ship with IRDA style IR ports, these are designed for communication with other laptops, palmtops, mobile phones, etc.

    It might be possible to rig something up with a parallel port and a IR LED. But I'm not sure about that...

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    1. Re:IRDA vs IR by renehollan · · Score: 3, Informative
      A parallel port (or even using the control line from a serial port) and an IR led will work, though you'll have to bit bang it, and may need external power for amplification (or steal it from a USB port, he he).

      Alternately, Xantech makes RS232 to IR converters which are designed to translate a character code sent over an RS232 line (i.e. your computer's serial port) to an IR signal which can be broadcast. However, the unit is quite large, and definitely requires an external power supply.

      Since you apparently didn't even bother to do a rudimentary Google search for "RS232 to IR", or you would know this already, doing that is left as an excercize.

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      You could've hired me.
    2. Re:IRDA vs IR by Dave2+Wickham · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, it probably is IRDA - but doesn't LIRC support that? It seems to imply that...

  2. Live Drive IR by GoRK · · Score: 2, Informative

    The live drive IR device is not a general purpose IR reciever. It works only with certain remotes, and it sends a decoded remote code out over the MIDI bus. If you use a recent version of the emu10k1 driver (as of 2.4.18 the capability is in the kernel driver) you can enable the live drive IR's IR port with a switch in emu-tools. IR messages come out of /dev/midi as general purpose MIDI message frames where they can be decoded.

    Again, this does not work with LIRC. I tried to add some support for it once, but didn't really get very far. I don't think that LIRC really has the code internals to deal with this sort of hardware. It'd be easier to write an app that decoded the IR codes from /dev/midi and listened on lirc's socket and port (thus emulating lirc and allowing any app that was designed to work with lirc work with the live drive ir)

    ~GoRK

  3. Remotes that work by GoRK · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have found that any remote from a creative-branded product (such as the remote that comes with the live/audigy/audigy2 or the remote that comes with creative speakers) can be decoded by the livedrive ir hardware (probably they use all the same remote control ic's across the board to save money.

    I also noticed that it could correctly decode the remote that came with my BetaBrite (LED Sign), which as fortune would have it, contains a full alphabet with punctuation and everything! It might work with remotes from other Adaptive Alpha-family LED signs.

    ~GoRK

  4. Nope. by cybermace5 · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is one major reason this will not work: power.

    The IRDA port is not meant to blast IR energy across a room and bounce it off the walls. TV remotes are.

    Your best bet is to build a serial port IR transmitter, such as described here.

    IRDA is only meant to work over distances of a couple feet. It is too tricky to get the IRDA port to match standard IR remote frequencies anyway.

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  5. Re:Why? by mnmn · · Score: 3, Insightful


    You dont ask that question in geek circles. Why is always an afterthought, when youve made your creation and need to make money off it. Same applies to good scientists.

    People have beowulfed PDAs, emulated IA-64 on 386s and created VPNs in VPNs with no WHY in sight.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
  6. The easy way to do it by miyako · · Score: 4, Funny
    although there are many other, more technical solutions, may requiring some sort of external power supply, there is a much simplier way to do this.
    first you have to get duct tape, a foot or so should do, although as with all things duct tape the more the better
    next get a universal remote and find a good, non-intrusive spot on the laptop. make sure you have batteries in the remote and it is programmed for your TV/VCR/DVD Player/etc. Place the remote firmly against the laptop and apply duct tape*.

    *note you may need to cut the duct tape into thinner strips to avoid covering any buttons on the remote*

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