Hey I was thinking of making an RF emitter/transmitter for my xbox 360 so that the arduino could read the RF code that is emitted by lets say pressing the A button on an xbox 360 remote, store it, and output the same code through a transmitter. I know this is how IR works for tv remotes and stuff, but would this be possible for Xbox 360? If so, does anyone have any code that works for something like this?
Well i have made an IR detector/emitter that reads the signal and outputs it. I tried pressing buttons on the xbox wireless controller and nothing was picked up... so I assumed that it must be RF controlled. Are you sure it uses IR?? because nothing was picked up, and i know it works because it picks up the signal from my tv remote.
The Xbox 360 wireless Controllers are a proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol. (This should be pretty obvious since you don't have to point your controllers at the Xbox in order for them to work.) It might be a variant of bluetooth, but information seems limited. So you would first have to reverse engineer the wireless protocol, before you could build a device to emulate a controller.
The alternative is that the 360 does have an IR port for the Media Center Remote Control. You could build an IR device to emulate button presses of the remote control. Information is probably more available on this device. The Media Remote has all of the buttons of the regular controller except for the should buttons and triggers.
Good call with the media remote, never thought about that 
Definitely going to look into that. But if the xbox controllers use RF frequencies, then can't you just detect the waves that are emitted and output the same wave using arduino + an RF emitter?
But if the xbox controllers use RF frequencies, then can't you just detect the waves that are emitted and output the same wave using arduino + an RF emitter?
No. Because it is a multi-layered protocol stack. Plus, any design work with radio-frequencies is pretty involved.
Here's just a few of the obstacles you'd have to over come.
- "Detecting RF Waves" isn't one of things you "just do." There is significant effort required to make a radio system that runs at the right frequency, with the proper bandwidth. That only covers "detecting" the radio-wave. You still need to do something with it (like down convert it and digitize it.)
Once you can handle the analog side, now you are ready to look at what is being sent...
- The signal used is generally called "Digital RF." The signal is modulated in a way to represent 1s and 0s, very much like MODEMs did with phone lines. So once you figure out all the science for #1, now you have to determine how to decode the modulation. (Do a search on constellation diagrams.)
Why do you need #2? because...
- Now you need to decode the digital protocol (commands, button presses, etc.) There is communication between the controller and console all the time. So you need to figure out which traffic is "idle traffic" and which is actually "button press."
So once you figure out all of 1, 2, and 3 now you have to...
- Build a system that properly modulates the digital protocol and send it out at a very high frequency.
Oh and since the controllers are paired with the console, you'll have to figure out how that mess works. Otherwise your "controller" won't be paired with the Xbox. (But don't forget that if you just make it a "new" controller, that it won't be "Player 1", it'll be Player 2+.) This pairing probably also makes it impossible for two controllers with the same id to talk to the Xbox at the same time.