Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

pop-port was an effort to have a proprietary cable format so that nokia could charge you 60 euros for a cable, the fact that there was a hands free and camera that connected to the pop-port still does not offer a reason to keep it. All phones now have integrated cameras and come with a hands-free. Plus you can use your 3.5mm earphones. It has been replaced by a universal (not necessarily newer) standard because someone at Nokia (and not at SE or Apple) saw that having standard ports is a reason for choosing a phone. (For me it is absolutely necessary - since the first n-gage, I never again bought any device with proprietary ports)

That stated, I wonder why the lack of a digital compass then. I feel it is much more 'neat' than a crippled IR port (and on the wrong side of the device)

EDIT: Now I remember, I did buy a phone with proprietary port, a samsung... anyway, it is still a reason for choosing a phone
________
Prilosec Settlement Info

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

Totally agree, digital compass would have been great!

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

I have a windows media center IR reciever on my PC, can it be used to record the IR commands from my remotes? Anyone know if theres an easy way to do it and get them into QTirreco

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

Can't you people stop complaining and whining even once??
I am not aware of ANY phone in the price range of the n900 that has this feature integrated. And guess what? Looks like it's of SOME use to certain people, otherwise why are there at least 3 different aftermarket CIR dongles for the iphone?

You can do a TON of stuff with the CIR transmitter if you'd just do some research. Besides controlling virtually all of your home equipment with it (except for radio-controlled wallsockets), you can use it to control toys, robots, toy-robots, DSLR cameras, surveillance cams, whatever.

How to learn new IR commands? Get an IR receiver for your computer (less than 5 bucks). Get Girder 3 (should still be available for free). Install igor plugin. read out IR codes. Also, bacon and profit.

EVERY other phone company would just have ignored any unused I/O pins of their hardware. The NIT dev team filled the space with something that doesn't give you ANY disadvantage, but can be really, really useful for some people. How can anyone complain about that?

And no, you'd never have used an IrDA port. No way in hell would you have used it to transfer anything from your ages old phone.

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

Fine, cause I know gazillions of _cheaper_ phones that have the feature integrated. IrDA, and more CIR range.

... with ALL of them having a receiver (advertised as "learning capabilities").

Oh, I'm sure. I could do quite a TON MORE stuff with an extra CIR receiver too (because _all_ those use cases directly benefit from the receiver, if anything because you no longer need a desktop), and I think I have enough reason to be confused why such a receiver was not in the design when I'm pretty sure that the entire pack was _way_ cheaper than drilling the hole in the case for the IR window.

DIY! OMG. So in order to make any use of the CIR I should buy a diode and build my own receiver? How completely useless -- If I were to EVER build my own IR receiver I would also build my own IR emitter and connect _BOTH_ to the earphone+mic plug. IN FACT I can buy the later (no DIY), so I'd end up with two perfectly working emitters! What's the use case for the N900 builtin one again?

Nokia is different! Nokia connected a emitter to some GPIO / PWM pin and left the unused IrDA/CIR pins of the OMAP3 unconnected. Clearly a competitive advantage.

Again, my gripe is that they MADE the damn IR window in the case but failed to put a receiver, thus doing what I believe is the costly part then left the cheap part out, slashing the usefulness of the _expensive_ IR window to less than a quarter of its original use cases. Why?

Ages old phone, ages old computer, ages old PDA... By now I would have used a receiver more times than the builtin GPS. Of course, I know the rest of the world doesn't share my PoV -- thus the reason I wouldn't have say a word if the thing were to come without any kind of IR capability (no NIT has had one either..).

But... this.... nice... completely useless though... IR hole...

*ignores feelings of Dèjá vu* (N8x0 mbx)

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

And the serial port profile would not suffice ?

The IR codes on remotes are not standard either (the carrier frequency is usually the same only because it's cheaper to use the transmitter/receiver HW when it's made by tens of milloins rather then hundresd of thousands)

I guess BT is just too expensive (and power hungry if you keep it connected all the time and opening the connection takes few hundred ms which would kinda suck as latency, though it could be mitigated [motion sensor to open connection when you pick up the remote...]), I mean the IR units must cost eurocents in these quantities, BT units cost euros...

Now zigbee already has taken this into account and is much simpler and lower power system (has other drawbacks though), not that they offer any standardized protocol above the serial layer, but it does not matter since it's easy to sniff and reverse engineer the protocol anyway.

As for finding out the codes, be a real geek and get bus-pirate, great for plenty of HW-hacking projects and the minimal logc analyzer mode can be used to sniff the IR protocol right off the led connectors...

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

easy, mate...
those receivers just go by the name of DIY, they are available assembled... 4,90 euro, like i said. i already own two of them, so i wont spend time to search a vendor for you. so what's your point? googling+ebaysearching for 5 minutes is too much of a hassle, so you keep bashing your 500 euro phone company?

Do a ton more stuff with a receiver? Wow. The only use case I can think of that isn't solvable without an external receiver would be using a generic tv remote to control your n900. something you could easily do with a bluetooth remote or whatever. nope, no ton of use cases... sorry.

your main point seems to be that you are ... special, and nokia doesn't fully "get" you, because the n900 doesn't fit your needs 100%. And yet, you obviously can't find a phone that better suits your needs.

If nokia would stick to your ravings and removed everything from the n900 that didn't work 100%, there would be no n900 at all. enjoy your super happy fantasy phone. i'll be enjoying my n900.

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

And how do you connect that one to the N900? Where's the RS232? At least the one I was talking about connects easily to the earphones+mic jack, and even comes with lirc+alsa drivers! Unfortunately, it has the side effect of making the N900 IR emitter useless and .. well, looks plain ugly. How easily could have it been hidden behind the nice but useless hole in the N900 case. Can't I dream?

So can you really do anything useful with the N900 IR emitter _without_ a desktop computer? That's the set of use cases I'm referring to. Want to learn a remote? Sorry, I have to boot up my desktop computer. That alone means 99% of possible users are not going to do it. See below.

No. My main point is that putting a receiver would've been terribly cheap considering there's already a IR window in there. And knowing that the number of people who'd like a IR emitter alone is quite a few orders of magnitude below the number of people who'd like an IR emitter+receiver (as evidenced by yourself: there's three IR modules for the iPhone and all of them have a receiver), putting the IR emitter only has been a terrible decision.
UNLESS there's some proof that somehow it was impossible or expensive to put the receiver and connect both diodes to the OMAP3 pins dedicated to.. you guessed it, CIR and IrDA.

The current solution is a weird mess and I still wonder WHY.

They do that all the time and there's still N900. Look, they're going to remove the resistive screen just because some guy can't handle the bit of pressure required.
But no, I don't want Nokia to do that. See my previous point.

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

whatever. you're right.
nokia is the devil. curse them for giving us the best open linux handset.

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

Sigh. Yes, I definitely think Nokia is the devil. I hope I can give all those Nokians a good spanking some day, and also steal all the N900s in the world to crush them together then send them to the sun!

/me wonders if my grammar is really so bad...

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

Can someone create a remote database for Pioneer MP3 car stereo? Would be great to use it in car as remote.

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

Fine, some would like the N900 to have an IR receiver and others don't care.

Stop fighting. Let's get back to the most interesting topic, is it possible to program a learning IR program on the N900 by using the camera?

This is waaaaaaaaaaaaay more interesting than reading the rants.

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

I wish you the best of lucks...
http://depot.javispedro.com/nit/irstill.png

This was taken using the slowest shutter setting (aka a dark room), and v4l. The emitter was at less than a few cm away. Being very optimistic I'd say there are 400 usable lines (the image is not scaled but clipped, rest was seemingly real background noise). Assuming fastest setting: 33ms frame time / around 1936 lines in 5MP mode ~= 58kHz.
But even all this pessimistic data is rubbish, meaningless and exaggerated since 30fps at 5MP is impossible, so I really doubt it will happen...

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

I ask myself something about the one-way function of the IR device on the N900. Is it really built in without receiving ability, or can't it be a software limitation, as the not built in MMS software?

(Just a joke: Apple said for a long time "Iphone can't send MMS, it's hardware, not software"... and changed this "issue" by providing a firmware update.)

I'm just asking, because i'm not sure that this IR hardware is only emettor capable...

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

as much as i hate suggesting work for others (honestly i would try it myself if i had the know how) is anyone interested in taking requests for popular codes and converting them from internet databases for use in the n900?

the fight over why irda isn't included is really not productive anymore, and as good an idea as rigging the camera to learn codes is, it seems the general concensus is nigh on impossible.

so while we dont want to all have to buy an external receiver each and do our own, a philanthropic community member or two may just be the solution. like i say i would do it myself if i could, and all i can offer in return is heartfelt and generous use of the thanks button!

any takers? my only real need/wish right now is a fully functioning uk sky+ hd code.

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

I love the fact that the thread starts with a good idea, then moves quckly into an argumant, I skip to the last page expecting to be back on track but yet still argument lol

Just a thought but would it not be possable to hold the button on the remote as surely the signal is being repeated? that way it could maybe be pieced together? Like hearing a message on a loop and slowly puting the pieces together...

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

You can see the schematics, they're on the Wiki. It's a plain IR LED connected to a PWM pin.
If there was an easy way out you can be sure I wouldn't be complaining...

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

Thx, i'm not an electronic expert, that's why i asked. If you're sure, i've nothing to ask more about it :)

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

Just wondering aloud here: what's the response time and the infra-red sensitivity of the other sensors on the device? The ambient light sensor? The sensor that detects the white patch on the lens cover slider? How does the proximity detector work? Maybe the front-facing camera can do more frames per second because it has fewer pixels?

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

Hmm. I have a HTPC with a working IR transceiver & LIRC installed. I found several remote controls and recorded their codes. I copied the config files over to my N900 and installed them into qtirecco.
Did it work? Did it b*ll*cks. :mad:

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

You can check if irreco got the codes right by recording the output signals from the n900, then comparing them to those of the original remote.

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

I wish cursing would be allowed on this forum. I follow all the new threads via rss and let me tell you that since the n900 was released there are 20 posts of "connect my usb stick", "iphone this and that" for 1 good post or new software application.

Or at least a button for go @#$% yourself instead of thanks

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

just an idea...

i've searched a forum about programmable universal remote controller and found this

http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin/codes/

they have a lot of hex codes of infrared remotes...
not sure whether this codes are modifiable into the lirc database,

or maybe someone with enough knowledge about these things could help converting those hex codes into the lirc database format so we could use them with qtirreco

thank you...

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

oh a programable IR? would be a cool idea. the tools which are available at the moment doesn't support the devices here :-/

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

You can convert them with the help of pronto2lirc:

Take http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin.../philips/5141/ for example:

0. Close QtIrreco
1. Create a file named Philips5141.hex
2. For every IR command create a line like the following examples for "Up" and "Down" (i cut of the code with ... you have to copy the complete code to the file):
Up: 0000 006a 0022...015e 0058 0017 0e88
Down: 0000 006a 0022...015e 0058 0017 0e8b
3. Copy the file to the N900
4. Open the Terminal, change directory to the location where you copied the file to.
5. Execute "pronto2lirc Philips5141.hex". If nothing went wrong, you will get a lircd.conf in the same directory
6. Move the file to the qtirreco device directory:

mv lircd.conf /home/user/MyDocs/qtirreco/Devices/Philips5141

It's IMPORTANT that the name of the file (Philips5141 here) is the same as the file you used for the hex codes (without the .hex extension)! Actually the filename must match with the value of "name" in the generated lircd.conf file.

7. Edit /etc/lircd.conf (you have to be root) and import the file you created by adding the following line:
include "/home/user/MyDocs/qtirreco/Devices/Philips5141"

(Replace Philips5141 with your name)

Hopefully after you start qtirreco again, you can create a new remote and use newly added commands when creating new buttons.

You can use irsend to list and send remote commands from the command line (only while qtirreco is started, because it starts lircd):

irsend LIST "" "" - Lists all remotes
irsend LIST "REMOTE" "" - List all commands from remote named "REMOTE"
irsend SEND_ONCE "REMOTE" "COMMAND" - Send the infrared command "COMMAND" from remote "REMOTE"


I hope everybody understands my english :-)

Re: (Request) Learning IR remote control
 

@eisbaer82

Does it still work in PR 1.3?