Senior TV remote build

Projects General Guidance
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My TV setup has numerous remote controls that you need to use to get the various parts working. One for the TV, one for the sound system, one for each Blu-ray player, one for the set-top box, one for the Roku and likely others that I don't need because the TV remote is fairly smart.

It's quite a trick to get it all to do what you want, but feasible. For my Dad though, with poor eyesight, it's a nightmare - all the remotes have tiny buttons with tiny writing on them, or none at all. One ring to rule them all solutions tend to be even worse in this regard apparently.

He can't tell the remotes apart either, so just trying to turn the TV off ends up with him pressing every button he can find, inadvertantly reconfiguring things horrifically and then yanking the power (if I'm lucky) leaving me with a debugging mystery to go through if I ever want to watch TV again.

I can't find a remote with big buttons that is sufficiently programable to turn the TV on/off and adjust the volume on the amplifier because the TV is incorrectly assumed to control volume. Directional buttons and select would theoretically be nice, but he can't really see well enough to select anything on screen.

As far as I can see, I can just build a learning device using Adafruit's IR tutorial and then hard code the resulting IR codes into a remote with the biggest buttons I can find. I may need to 3D print a case for this.

The bit that's bothering me is powering the device with batteries without having to change them all the time. So I will need a minimal processor that'll sip power and can sleep a lot but be easily woken by any button push.

If worst comes to worst though, I'll put a website somewhere on my network to act as the UI for the remote and keep the IR transmitter portion mains powered - Dad can use an old iPad to hit the web page. Indeed, this may just be a Pi, don't know yet.

So, if anyone has come across hardware that already solves this or has other advice, please bring it on, or I'll start down this described path when my parts arrive next week.

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Logitech used to make a line of universal remotes called Harmony, which are now discontinued, but still available and partially supported. Most of them feature soft keys (with large-font labels displayed on a built-in LED screen) for the major functions. Might be worth looking into, but if you end up building your own, I'll be interested to see what you come up with.

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Haha. I remember a lady friend having the table full of remotes, but whitch one to operate?
You're on a fine track! Hope You'll get the help needed!

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add_accessibility_to_your_arduino_wifi_project

Simple demo of a microcontroller WebUI to control a GPIO pin on an ESP32 or Pi Pico W. I think there are TV IR libraries for ESP32 and Pi Pico (RP2040). The emphasis is on Voice Control to "tap" the screen but the WebUI also works with the usual finger touch.

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Take a look at the remote I built:

https://github.com/gbhug5a/Timed-Mute-TV-Remote

It was for a different purpose than yours, but I have it using the TV's remote codes for power and mute, the soundbar's codes for audio level, and the cable box's codes to change the channel. It uses a plain old 3.3V 8MHz Pro Mini that deep sleeps when not in active use, at about 2uA. It has the LED and regulator removed. Batteries last a long time.

The main challenge is to figure out what protocols the various remotes are using. But if you're lucky, IRremote.h will be able to figure them out. You'll need an IR receiver module to do that.

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It looks like there is a lot of useful stuff there - should save me some research time, so thanks!

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