One IR emitter! only one IR emitter costing a few cents could have been added to the current crop of smart phones. in our family we all have our smart phones with us all the time. it makes sense to let them function as a universal remote as well.
I wonder if it is possible to build an IR emitter with some circuitry that allows audio signals to power and control the emitter. If so it should be possible to build a tiny 3.5mm plug that fits in the phones audio jack with only a small IR emitter protruding.
Having to put an entire sleeve around your phone makes the whole idea silly in my view. the L5 remote makes a lot more sense.
Paul van Dinther – July 26, 2011 @ 03:07 pm PDT
Yes, now you can run down your ‘I-Phone’ battery by using your ‘I-Phone’ as a remote. What’s cheaper, buying a universal, rechargable batteries or spending $90 bucks to get your ‘I-Phone’s’ battery replaced? I would go with the $10 remote and the $12.99 charger with the two free ‘AA’ batteries! Now I spent $22.99 ( the batteries can be recharged for 1,000 times…that will be a few years) instead of $90 bucks to get my ‘I-Phone’s’ battery replaced.
Pks29733steel – July 27, 2011 @ 08:26 am PDT
IR transmitter add-ons were made for Palm Pilots before they had built in IR transmitter/receivers. they combined with software like Omni Remote to control almost any IR controllable devices.
Bluetooth and WiFi have pushed IR out of newer PDAs and phones (Apple’s iPod Touch products are really PDAs, they just don’t call them that) so to get IR function back you have to go back to the design concepts of the late 90’s.
A Palm TX with Omni Remote would do the same job for a lot less money.
Gregg Eshelman – July 27, 2011 @ 02:34 pm PDT