Let's diy the f*ck out of this :)

So my wife purchased a couple of electric tea lights. Those who flicker like candles. But instead of cells they use rechargable batteries and come with a charger board - which is awesome.

AND... they came not only with a cheap remote control, BUT... also a f*cking WAND! It has buttons... but you can pretend to be like Harry or Hermione. say out loud LUMOS! while you direct it towards the lights (and secretly push the ON button) and they illuminate. :)

That made me think...

She also has a couple of Book Nooks. You know... these kind of things that sit between books in your shelve and look like little book shops or whatever. They also have LED stipes and battery packs behind their backside with switches.

This is kinda stupid, because you need to manually switch on and off these things and their switches are not really good reachable.

Which is why I built a little prototype todays consisting of a small Arduino Pro Mini 3.3V/8MHz, a capacitor, some resistors, a button, an LED, an infrared sensor and a transistor (and of course a couple of wires, etc.).

The result: You push the button and the circuit goes into learning mode for the ON signal. You push the ON button on your remote and the circuit acknowledges it by bursting some led blinks. You push its button again and the thing goes into learning again for the OFF signal... you know the drill.

After learning, you can actually switch on and off whatever you like with your remote control (or wand). ;-)

I am reworking the Proof of Concept now to make use of an ATTINY85, a cell to operate the microcontroller and a custom PCB to house everything. The goal is a small device that you can "attach" to an existing battery pack by cutting the original switch and connecting this device instead, so that you can actually make use of any remote control that you already own and don't have to manually switch on and off your LEDs.

What do you think?