Retro-Futuristic Bluetooth Remote
Vintage Magnavox remote converted to work with BLE signaling.
Many years ago, TV remotes used far fewer buttons. They often featured a design that seemed futuristic at the time, but that perhaps feels a bit dated now. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting aesthetic, and after finding a two-pack of vintage Magnavox eight-button remotes on eBay, geekquixotic decided to convert one of them into a Bluetooth unit.
To do so, he disassembled the clicker and added an an Adafruit Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE board via a hand-soldered section of perfboard. The features both an ATmega32u4 microcontroller as well as BLE capabilities and built-in battery charging, making it perfect for such a remote application. A series of buttons were also added to pick up on inputs to the remote buttons, and the completed board replaced the original remote internals. Component positioning was accomplished through a combination of eyeballing and measurement.
With this new device, geekquixotic now has a unit that can control his studio computer without a visible keyboard in view, or presumably other Bluetooth gadgets if properly programmed. He also has one remote left over, which could be used for a variety of purposes. One interesting possibility proposed would be to leave the remote in its original condition, emitting an ultrasonic tone to change “channels.” An HID-capable microcontroller could then be used to pick up on these frequencies as a modern computer input device.