IR Remote Room Light Switch

Student: Chris Giles

Supervisor: Richard Cocks

Category: Computer Systems Engineering Thesis Project

In a world plagued by the relentless evolution of technology, one must accept such a dominant force for the increasingly necessary society-altering ingredient that it is. Humans, being the rationally thinking breed that they are, choose paths that ultimately suit best their individual needs. Busy modern western societies inflate the value of the individual’s time to the point where conscious efforts are made in order to reduce the time spent on habitual tasks.

One such example is that of the television remote control. This device was invented primarily for the purpose of lessening the discomfort associated with changing the station. Suppose now that the viewer also fancies the room lighting state being inverted. One could argue that the remote control is superfluous in this case.

My thesis deals directly with this problem. My solution was to build a device that allows the viewer to toggle the room lighting via their remote control. It must have the capacity to support all available brands of remote. There are numerous signal code modulations throughout the range of modern remotes, and likewise there are many buttons on each remote, each having a slightly different code to any other - so obviously, pre-storing these codes into my device was out of the question. Hence, the device must have the ability to learn any button from any remote.

Thesis Document (PDF)

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