{"id":548,"date":"2026-05-12T14:48:02","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elrebo.de\/?p=548"},"modified":"2026-05-12T14:55:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T12:55:46","slug":"easy-operation-of-tv-appletv-and-radio-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/easy-operation-of-tv-appletv-and-radio-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Easy Operation of TV, AppleTV and Radio (Part I)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Situation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In our living room we use a Panasonic TV, a Yamaha Receiver and an AppleTV. In addition there are a Pioneer DVD player and a DUAL record player, but I will concentrate on the TV and receiver here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To watch TV we have to use the IR remote controllers of the TV and the receiver to switch them on and select the right configuration for watching TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To use the AppleTV we have to use those two and in addition the Siri Remote to control the AppleTV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>it&#8217;s a little bit easier to listen to the radio, here we only need the IR remote controller of the receiver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Challenge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Implement a solution, where we are able to control the system with a single IR remote controller and where the complexity of the system is hidden from the user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The first Approach to a Solution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/elrebo.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_5554-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-550\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_5554-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_5554-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_5554-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_5554-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_5554-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the prototype of my solution for the challenge: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An IR remote controller built around an ESP32 SoC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is an M5 Atom Lite with an M5 Tailbat Battery. In addition I use an external IR emitter, because the internal IR emitter in the M5 Atom Lite is so weak, that it does not work from my sofa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now we have the following situation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>To watch TV we have to do a single click on the button of the M5 Atom Lite. To switch the TV channels we still have to use the IR remote controller of the TV. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>To watch Apple TV we have to do a double click on the button of the M5 Atom Lite. To switch the AppleTV input we still have to use the Siri Remote.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>To listen to the radio we have to do a long press on the button of the M5 Atom Lite. To select the radio station we still have to use the IR remote controller of the receiver.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The next Steps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Put the ESP32 SoC, the battery and the IR emitter in a box.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Add several buttons to control the different scenarios. Having different buttons for TV, AppleTV, Radio and Off will simplify the operation and make the system even useable for the grandparents.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Add + and &#8211; buttons to adjust the volume level of the receiver.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Add Up and Down buttons to switch between the predefined TV channels and radio stations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Under the Hood<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>You can find the sources on GitHub at <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/elrebo-de\/esp_av_rmt\">https:\/\/github.com\/elrebo-de\/esp_av_rmt<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Contact me, if you want to discuss or need more info.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Situation In our living room we use a Panasonic TV, a Yamaha Receiver and an AppleTV. In addition there are a Pioneer DVD player and a DUAL record player, but I will concentrate on the TV and receiver here. To watch TV we have to use the IR remote controllers of the TV and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1,16],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-esp32_socs","category-oss","category-physical_computing","tag-ir-remote-controller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":553,"href":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions\/553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elrebo.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}