simple battery powered ir remote control feasibility

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Hello,
I have a question about the feasibility of my project idea.

Problem: with my TV it is quite cumbersome to change sources using the remote control.
As we enter the age of Chromecast, blueray, laptop source and av amp powered speakers, we find that the only time we actually need the remote is to switch input sources. With my remote, you have to go through an irritating sequence of button presses to achieve this. I had the idea of building a simple and elegant single button arduino based device to toggle sources, and possibly expand functionality in future. It would probably be based on adafruit ir transmitter hardware. My problem is that I'd need this to work off batteries. From my digging around it looks like I might only expect around a month or so max of life, varying a bit based on the design efficiancy and the type of battery.
Ideally I'd like something that has at least a couple of months, in order for my wife to accept it as a reliable solution, and not another one of my useless projects. I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts or links to similar successful projects.

Thanks!

2

Totally possible

Just make the buttons supply power to the Arduino as well as being connected to an input.

Or just have a physical on and off switch. Or in case you are concerned it will be left turned on.

Have a push button for power and separate push buttons for the functions.

You would have to hold the power button down and press the function button, but that doesn't sound so hard to me

3

Great suggestion rC. I wonder if you think that it will be practically achievable to have the arduino powered on, initialized, read input and transmit ir signal during the button down time (I have no idea arduino tales to power up and start running). That would be amazing.

I guess if this isn't realistic I could work out a way to have the button trigger power on to the arduino for a sensible period of time to toggle through the TV sources, say 10 seconds.

4

Someone posted a circuit idea on this forum (a few days ago), which basically does what you want.

I think it could have been @Crossroads, but I can't be sure

In his circuit there were 2 transistors that were used to hold the power on, to the Arduino, until the Arduino had finished what it was doing, and the Arduino would then effectively turn its self off.

One thing however. You will probably need to remove the bootloader, as the startup delay in the bootloader would prevent you reading which button had been pressed, before the button was released again.

So you will need to get yourself either a 2nd Arduino or another external programmer, so you can directly program the ATMega chip
(I have a cheap AVRISP programmer I got from an eBay supplier and it works fine, I think it was under $10)

5

Perfect, I'll find the thread you mention. That approach makes a lot of sense. Good tip about the boot loader as well.

cheers,
george