Tag Archives: Infrared

Improving Indoor Navigation of Robots With IR

Posted on by

If the booths at CES are to be believed, the future is full of home robots: everything from humanoid robots on wheels to Alexas duct taped to a Roomba. Back in reality, home robots really aren’t a thing yet. There’s an obvious reason for this: getting around a house is hard. A robot might actually need legs to get up and down stairs, and GPS simply doesn’t exist indoors, at least to the accuracy needed. How on Earth does a robot even navigate indoors?

This project for the Hackaday Prize solves the problem of indoor navigation, and it does it …read more

Continue reading Improving Indoor Navigation of Robots With IR→

IR Detective Eases Development with Compact Decoding

Posted on by

Hardware development often involves working with things that can’t be directly perceived, which is one reason good development tools are so important. In appreciation of this, [David Johnson-Davies] created the IR Remote Control Detective to simplify working with IR signals. While IR remote controls are commonplace, there are a number of different protocols and encoding methods in use across different brands. The IR Detective takes care of all of that with three main components, none of which are particularly expensive. To use the decoder, one simply points an IR remote at the unit and presses one of the buttons. The …read more

Continue reading IR Detective Eases Development with Compact Decoding→

Motion-Controlled KVM Switch

Posted on by

Once upon a time, [hardwarecoder] acquired a Gen8 HP microserver that he began to toy around with. It started with ‘trying out’ some visualization before spiraling off the rails and fully setting up FreeBSD with ZFS as a QEMU-KVM virtual machine. While wondering what to do next, he happened to be lamenting how he couldn’t also fit his laptop on his desk, so he built himself a slick, motion-sensing KVM switch to solve his space problem.

At its heart, this device injects DCC code via the I2C pins on his monitors’ VGA cables to swap inputs while a relay ‘replugs’ …read more

Continue reading Motion-Controlled KVM Switch→

No, Cat, This Is Not The Litter Box

Posted on by

Hackaday.io user [peterquinn] has encountered a problem with his recently unruly cat peeing under the dining table. Recognizing that the household cat’s natural enemy is the spray bottle, he built an automatic cat sprayer to deter her antics.

The build is clear-cut: an Arduino Uno clone for a brain, an MG995 servo, PIR sensor, spray bottle, and assorted electronics components. [peterquinn] attached the servo to the spray bottle with a hose clamp — ensuring that the zero position is pointing at the trigger — and running a piece of cabling around the trigger that the servo will tug on. Adding …read more

Continue reading No, Cat, This Is Not The Litter Box→

Tachometer Uses Light, Arduinos

Posted on by

To measure how fast something spins, most of us will reach for a tachometer without thinking much about how it works. Tachometers are often found in cars to measure engine RPM, but handheld units can be used for measuring the speed of rotation for other things as well. While some have mechanical shafts that must make physical contact with whatever you’re trying to measure, [electronoobs] has created a contactless tachometer that uses infrared light to take RPM measurements instead.

The tool uses an infrared emitter/detector pair along with an op amp to sense revolution speed. The signal from the IR …read more

Continue reading Tachometer Uses Light, Arduinos→

Harvesting Energy from the Earth with Quantum Tunneling

Posted on by

More energy hits the earth in sunlight every day than humanity could use in about 16,000 years or so, but that hasn’t stopped us from trying to tap into other sources of energy too. One source that shows promise is geothermal, but these methods have been hindered by large startup costs and other engineering challenges. A new way to tap into this energy source has been found however, which relies on capturing the infrared radiation that the Earth continuously gives off rather than digging large holes and using heat exchangers.

This energy is the thermal radiation that virtually everything gives …read more

Continue reading Harvesting Energy from the Earth with Quantum Tunneling→

Harvesting Energy from the Earth with Quantum Tunneling

Posted on by

More energy hits the earth in sunlight every day than humanity could use in about 16,000 years or so, but that hasn’t stopped us from trying to tap into other sources of energy too. One source that shows promise is geothermal, but these methods have been hindered by large startup costs and other engineering challenges. A new way to tap into this energy source has been found however, which relies on capturing the infrared radiation that the Earth continuously gives off rather than digging large holes and using heat exchangers.

This energy is the thermal radiation that virtually everything gives …read more

Continue reading Harvesting Energy from the Earth with Quantum Tunneling→

Your Audio Will Be Back, Right After This Commercial Break

Posted on by

[LittleTern] — annoyed by repetitive advertisements — wanted the ability to mute their Satellite Box for the duration of every commercial break. Attempts to crack their Satellite Box’s IR protocol went nowhere, so they thought — why not simply mute the TV?

Briefly toying with the idea of a separate remote for the function, [LittleTern] discarded that option as quickly as one tends to lose an additional remote. Instead, they’re using the spare RGYB buttons on their Sony Bravia remote — cutting down on total remotes while still controlling the IR muting system. Each of the four coloured buttons normally …read more

Continue reading Your Audio Will Be Back, Right After This Commercial Break→

Play A Few Games of Smash Brothers On The Go With A Portable Wii

Posted on by

How would you approach a build that required you to hack apart a perfectly good console motherboard? With aplomb and a strong finish. [jefflongo] from [BitBuilt.net] — a forum dedicated to making consoles portable — has finished just such a task, unveiling his version of a portable Wii to the world.

While this bears the general appearance of a portable GameCube, it’s what inside that counts. A heavily modified   Wii motherboard — to reduce size — forms this portable’s backbone, and it includes two infrared LEDs on its faceplate for Wii Remotes.  A single player can use the built-in controller, …read more

Continue reading Play A Few Games of Smash Brothers On The Go With A Portable Wii→

Cryptanalyse Your Air Con

Posted on by

Infrared remote controls are simple and ubiquitous. Emulating them with the aid of a microcontroller is a common project that hackers use to control equipment as diverse as televisions, cable boxes, and home stereos. Some air conditioners can be a little more complicated, however, but [Ken]’s here to help.

The root of the problem is that the air conditioner remote was using a non-obvious checksum to verify if commands received were valid. To determine the function generating the checksum, [Ken] decided to bust out the tools of differential cryptanalysis. This involves carefully varying the input to a cryptographic function and …read more

Continue reading Cryptanalyse Your Air Con→