3 ms·

At my old job I had a phone that had IR remote capability. I'd turn off or mute the blaring TVs in our break rooms. Good times.

cweagans 9mo ago
There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device. Not sure if it's made anymore, but there's a DIY kit that appears to do the same thing: https://www.adafruit.com/product/73 https://www.adafruit.com/product/73 I used to carry one with me everywhere (it was small enough to fit on a keychain). One night at a sports bar, I showed it to a friend. Before I could stop him, he pushed the button and every TV in the place went black, right in the middle of some PPV sports event. Anyway, he bought one on the spot.
- ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
  There was a guy who sold a chip for that which you fitted to a car keyfob. In the olden days of the late 80s, Valeo used a pretty insecure not-rolling-code infrared thing for central locking systems. Anyway you'd get a handful of old Rover, Peugeot, Renault, or Citroën (and a bunch of others) fobs from the scrapyard and fit this pre-programmed PIC microcontroller, and when you pressed the button it would cycle through a bunch of volume down, mute, and power off commands for most common brands of TV. However the real genius one - and it was about 20 quid - was this. Remember Furbies? They would chatter away to each other, using infrared to communicate so they'd go in sync. Well, this one that transmitted the "GO TO SLEEP RIGHT NOW" command to any Furby in the room. Relatively expensive but worth it.
- mschuster91 9mo ago
  > There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device. Not sure about that one either but its functionality has been cloned for the Flipper Zero [1] [1] https://blog.flipper.net/infrared/ https://blog.flipper.net/infrared/
- dylan604 9mo ago
  The Woz would be so proud
- markvdb 9mo ago
  The original TV-B-Gone [0][1] was designed by the legendary Mitch Altman [2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-B-Gone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-B-Gone [1] https://www.tvbgone.com/ https://www.tvbgone.com/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman
- achairapart 9mo ago
  When iPhones still had the headphone port, a friend of mine soldered a IR led on top of a minijack, something like this: https://www.rtfms.com/wp-content/rtfms-com/LED-pinout.png https://www.rtfms.com/wp-content/rtfms-com/LED-pinout.png Then, with some special app, or even just playing some audiofiles — I don't remember — he'd do the same thing as the device above.
  - mystifyingpoi 9mo ago
    Wow, this is clever. Yeah, the headphone out can push out a signal like 1 volt at low current, but this is likely enough for the IR LED to "light up". I really like this idea.
rahimnathwani 9mo ago
https://idiallo.com/blog/teaching-my-neighbor-to-keep-the-volume-down https://idiallo.com/blog/teaching-my-neighbor-to-keep-the-vo...
tombert 9mo ago
There’s a TV-BE-GONE app for Bruce on the CardPuter and I think one for the Flipper Zero as wells. It will cycle through dozens of codes to power off the TV. It’s been fun to turn off random TVs, though I don’t do it much because I don’t want to be too much of a douche.

cweagans 9mo ago

There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device. Not sure if it's made anymore, but there's a DIY kit that appears to do the same thing: https://www.adafruit.com/product/73 https://www.adafruit.com/product/73 I used to carry one with me everywhere (it was small enough to fit on a keychain). One night at a sports bar, I showed it to a friend. Before I could stop him, he pushed the button and every TV in the place went black, right in the middle of some PPV sports event. Anyway, he bought one on the spot.

ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
There was a guy who sold a chip for that which you fitted to a car keyfob. In the olden days of the late 80s, Valeo used a pretty insecure not-rolling-code infrared thing for central locking systems. Anyway you'd get a handful of old Rover, Peugeot, Renault, or Citroën (and a bunch of others) fobs from the scrapyard and fit this pre-programmed PIC microcontroller, and when you pressed the button it would cycle through a bunch of volume down, mute, and power off commands for most common brands of TV. However the real genius one - and it was about 20 quid - was this. Remember Furbies? They would chatter away to each other, using infrared to communicate so they'd go in sync. Well, this one that transmitted the "GO TO SLEEP RIGHT NOW" command to any Furby in the room. Relatively expensive but worth it.
mschuster91 9mo ago
> There used to be a commercially-made tv-b-gone device. Not sure about that one either but its functionality has been cloned for the Flipper Zero [1] [1] https://blog.flipper.net/infrared/ https://blog.flipper.net/infrared/
dylan604 9mo ago
The Woz would be so proud
markvdb 9mo ago
The original TV-B-Gone [0][1] was designed by the legendary Mitch Altman [2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-B-Gone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-B-Gone [1] https://www.tvbgone.com/ https://www.tvbgone.com/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman
achairapart 9mo ago
When iPhones still had the headphone port, a friend of mine soldered a IR led on top of a minijack, something like this: https://www.rtfms.com/wp-content/rtfms-com/LED-pinout.png https://www.rtfms.com/wp-content/rtfms-com/LED-pinout.png Then, with some special app, or even just playing some audiofiles — I don't remember — he'd do the same thing as the device above.
- mystifyingpoi 9mo ago
  Wow, this is clever. Yeah, the headphone out can push out a signal like 1 volt at low current, but this is likely enough for the IR LED to "light up". I really like this idea.

rahimnathwani 9mo ago

https://idiallo.com/blog/teaching-my-neighbor-to-keep-the-volume-down https://idiallo.com/blog/teaching-my-neighbor-to-keep-the-vo...

tombert 9mo ago

There’s a TV-BE-GONE app for Bruce on the CardPuter and I think one for the Flipper Zero as wells. It will cycle through dozens of codes to power off the TV. It’s been fun to turn off random TVs, though I don’t do it much because I don’t want to be too much of a douche.