Most consumer electronic devices come with a handheld remote control that allows you to wirelessly control the device from a short distance. Remote controls produce digitally encoded IR pulse streams for button-presses, such as Power, Volume, Channel, Temperature, and so on. However, can we extend the control distance between the device and the remote control? Yes we can; by using Arduino IoT in conjunction with a few electronic components. This chapter explains how you can incrementally build an Internet-controlled infrared remote control with Arduino.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- How to build a simple infrared receiver and decode values for each remote control key
- The infrared raw data format
- How to build an infrared sender to send the captured raw data to the target device
- How to control the infrared sender to interact with the target device through the Internet
With Arduino and some basic electronic components, we can easily build an infrared recorder and remote control. This allows you to record any infrared command (code) sent by an infrared remote control. Also, it allows you to resend the recorded infrared command to a target device and the device will treat the command the same as the remote control's command. Therefore, you can playback any recorded infrared command and control your respective infrared device.
The typical uses of applications are:
The following hardware and software components are needed to build a basic IR remote.
- The Arduino Uno: R3 board
- The Arduino Ethernet Shield or Arduino Ethernet board
- An LED light: Infrared 950 nm
- An IR receiver diode: TSOP38238
- A 330 Ohm 1/6 Watt resistor
- A mini pushbutton switch
- An IR socket that can be found at http://www.ebay.com/itm/IR-Infrared-Power-Adapter-Remote-Control-AC-Power-Socket-Outlet-Switch-Plug-/311335598809, or a similar one.
Download the IR Arduino library from https://github.com/z3t0/Arduino-IRremote. Click on the
Download ZIP button. Extract the downloaded ZIP file and place it in your computer's local drive. You will get the Arduino-IRremote-master folder; the folder name may be different. Inside this folder, there is another folder named Arduino-IRremote-master. This folder name may also be different. Now, copy and paste this folder on the Arduino libraries folder:
The Arduino-IRremote library on GitHub