iPod Touch: the universal remote

Integrating audio / video entertainment systems around a house is not a trivial task. It is still much easier today than some years ago, when the only way to go was to install a dedicated system from vendors like Bose or Bang-Olufsen. I have been playing with multi - room audio and video for a long time and basically there have always been three areas to solve:

1. Media transport. Making sure a CD or a radio station can be played in any room, with individual volume adjustment. My first installation was just a number of power amplifiers with speaker cables around the house. Three years ago I moved to an all-IP solution, storing my entire music collection on a NAS server (the Infrant ReadyNAS NV+, running Logitech's SqueezeCenter streaming audio to a number of SqueezeBoxes). For stored videos I use the same NAS server, streaming the content DLNA-compliant way down to Sony PS3 console. For live video there are Linux - powered Kathrein UFS-910 DVB-S satellite set-top boxes.
2. Remote control. Most of today's media players, including TV sets of course, come with remote controls of their own. The remote controls are usually infrared, so the control signals do not cross walls. This may be a problem from time to time, so often a device called remote control extender is implemented. RC extenders sense the infrared RC signals, convert the commands to short range radio waves and do the opposite conversion at the other end. I have always had some issues with that, probably due to fairly noisy electromagnetic environment in my house, but experimenting with proper positioning of the extender's antennas has often helped.
3. Unification of control functions. This is the tough one. Every piece of equipment comes with its own remote and makes many functions ambiguous. Like volume control - when I watch a movie, I have volume on my set-top box remote, on my TV's remote and on my sound system remote. Each one controls its own, while in this very case I should use the remote controlling the surround sound amplifier. On the other hand to switch channels, I should use the set-top ox remote. And to switch video input from satellite to PS3, I should use TV's remote. Oh yes I am aware of universal remotes, but they are expensive, do not provide good visual feedback and usually do not traverse walls.

Fortunately there is a light at the end of the tunnel, when it comes to the unification of control. I have recently experimented with an iPod Touch. I bought a refurbished 8GB model for about $80 to play with. iPod Touch (and iPhone) is by all means the best small form factor device when it comes to rendering of html pages. Plus it's (multi) touch is great to operate. If only the devices I wanted to control were exposing their functions via locally served web pages... Surprisingly we are not that far off that vision.

Lets take the Squeezeboxes. The new ones (Duets) come with WiFi remotes. The new remotes actually can control the Classic ones. Because the control is actually via the SqueezeCenter server. And on the iTunes store there is a application, called iPeng, that lets do just that - have a complete control over Squeeze - based multi - room sound system from an iPod (or an iPhone). I am proud to report the iPeng was my first iTunes AppStore purchase ever (and I do not regret it:).

Then I approached my Kathrein DVB-S receiver. It is Linux - based and there are many alternative firmwares and extensions. Actually I installed httpd - a http daemon, then linked it to a series of bash scripts, each of them invoking a IR-emulating command in the form of [/data/bin/irsend SEND_RELAY '0000000022900010 00 VOLUME_UP' RC660] or similar. The visual effect can be seen on the attached picture, but the beauty is the entire control is done over WiFi and TCP/IP, so controlling my local set-top box is as easy as controlling the one my Mother has miles away (when she asks to help her schedule recordings or something...).

The final missing link is to control my TVs and surround sound system components using the iPod Touch. I may have hard time trying to install httpd on my TV set, but I have noticed my flat screen LG has a serial port and actually it IS possible to control it using simple terminal commands. So likely my next hobby project will be a dedicated LAN-to-RS-232 converter, exposing the functions of the TV as a set of web services and executing these services by sending serial control commands to the TV set. This ultimately will allow to build an integrated home intranet portal for multiroom multimedia control. And this portal will be operated using iPods as html display devices and wireless touch controllers. This may take a few weeks to finish, but stay tuned, I will report the results as soon as I have them :)