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Ultrasonic Remote v2

Bringing new life to a 50s Magnavox ultrasonic remote control.

chad-lawsonChad Lawson
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In many ways, this entire project is just another "macro keyboard" as seems to be the project du jour in the maker world these days.

A few years ago I bid on a vintage Magnavox ultrasonic remote control. Right off the bat, I intended to dismantle it and put in new electronics to make it a bluetooth macro keyboard.

When it arrived, it turns out I was wrong. I got two!

So one went through the transformation process and became a bluetooth macro keyboard for use in a video studio. You can read about it on [instructables.com](https://www.instructables.com/Retro-Future-Bluetooth-Remote/).

The other one (which works) has been sitting and waiting for a new destiny ever since. Now it is time.

For this one, I am not going to alter the device in any way. I found a replacement battery, but that's it.

Instead, this project is to build a device that can listen to the ultrasonic frequencies of the remote, detect the frequency pressed, and send a key press out through

In the past I took apart one of the remotes and made a modern, Bluetooth macro keyboard and used the remote as the body; and, arguably, killing the "soul" of the remote.

But back then I had no idea how to listen to an ultrasonic burst, detect the frequency, and map it. But having played with some CircuitPython projects over the last couple years, I have a good chance this time around.

So, using the second of the two vintage Magnavox remotes I bought on eBay back in the day, this time around I'm preserving the heart, body, and soul of the original remote and building a receiver that will act as the macro keyboard based on the input from the remote.

  • 1 × Ultrasonic Receiver (removed from standard Arduino rangefinder
  • 1 × Itsty Bitsy M0 Express (or compatbile board)
  • 1 × Amplifiier Breakout Board

  • Sittin' on a Shelf -or- Another Unfinished Project

    Chad Lawson • 06/29/2021 at 03:12 • 0 comments

    I've had to shelf this project for a while longer. Or rather, I've had to shelf this project again for a while longer. I was really counting on this contest to be the thing to force me to give it more time on the bench.

    Sadly this last year has left me with double the amount of work and, therefore, half the amount of time to work on things like this.

    The breakthrough for this project was finding some great sample code on frequency detection that I planned to use to handle the main workload.

    From there, it's a matter of mapping those frequencies to specific macros/keystrokes/keycodes on the receiver side.

    So, really, this entire project is yet another macro keyboard (the project of the day, it seems) but with a retro twist.

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