I used to have so much fun back when cell phones had IR blasters. Changing channels and messing with people before it was common knowledge that you could do that on a cell. I wish phones still had that.
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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Back in the day when they were actually focused on putting features into phones instead of stripping them out...
RIP FM antennas, too.
used to have a FM tuner on the modem. International models do still carry modems with FM tuners on them. And the antenna was you headphone cord. Which is why it doesnt and won't work with Bluetooth..... And for all likely hood it won't work with USB c headphones either
RIP headphone jack 🫡
Swappable batteries was the big one for me
Oh man my LG V20 was great for this
The Redmi line still has ir transmitters afaik
I confirm. The kid in me made me buy it
There are still ways to do that. A friend of mine loves to mess woth Telas. He can open their charging door with a device.
Long before smartphones, Casio used to make an IR blaster watch. Nobody ever suspected the person checking the time was messing with the TV.
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GS4 owner checking in. That was the best phone I've ever owned for the year it was...
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I loved it when my phone had IR. I really hate it when restaurants have tvs on in the dining room. I would turn the volume down or even turn it off. I really miss being able to do that.
My Galaxy S5 was great when people insisted on watching Fox or Nancy Grace at full volume on the lunch room TV.
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Most Chinese brand phones like oppo and Xiaomi still has it as standard.
I use it to control my air conditioning all the time.
I wonder if that's why phones no longer have IR blasters.
Phones don't have IR blasters anymore for the same reason they don't have aux ports or SD card slots anymore. For one, they remove these features to make room for other things that take up the real estate of a thin slice of technology. And for two, cutting those things increases the profit margin of the phones they sell, even if only slightly.
They also removed radio capabilities. Rip the days I would listen to live radio at 2 am while I washed dishes at chili's.
i still have redmi note 4 with one
fully controllable with an api too
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I miss using my LG v20
I wonder if an IR dongle is a thing that's available and would function well...
look irplus wave if you have a headphone jack
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So you're the reason I find my TV turned on in the morning.
I'm going to find you. I will bill you for the power, and I will additionally calculate the cost of screen burn mileage on my TV. You will pay.
Connect your TV power cable to an outlet or splitter with a switch, turn the switch off every time you won't watch tv for long. Enjoy 90% defense against remotejackers and 1% higher calorie burn bonus.
Don't do that if you have an OLED, though. AFAIK, they need to turn themselves on from time to time to do some panel refresh stuff to prevent burn in.
Pretty sure that's incorrect. They do, however, shift pixels from time to time to prevent burn in, but that's while they're on.
Depends on your model. Most run a pixel refresher and quite a few do it only after being off for a few hours.
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I used to have a Samsung Galaxy S4, and its main gimmick was the IR blaster that also made the phone a universal remote. Great way to mess with people when I was in college at parties muting the TV or slowly making it louder over the course of a long time.
My roomie and I also had the same exact TV, which made it fun to point the remote in her room and turn it off from time to time.
S4 was peak Samsung. IR blaster, removable battery, SD card, water resistant, amoled screen that phone just had it all
It was not water resistant, actually. I'd know. Mine was broken when I got pushed into a swimming pool. :(
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I still use my s4 with LineageOS. It's on it's third battery but still going strong.
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It'd be crueler to open the VUDU app.
Came here to post this. There's a great diy post I always wanted to make that integrated one into a hat
Such a brilliant product!
Wouldn’t this only work with a remote that’s already paired to the Roku, though?
The Roku TV remotes don't operate via Wi-Fi like remotes for the dedicated Roku boxes, instead they suck. The Roku TV ones are simple IR remotes.
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everyone who doesn't use roku: ???
spared from the ravages of an agent of an agent of chaos
When I was in high school in the 90s, someone started selling little keychain universal remotes and kids would occasionally bring them to school to fuck with the TV while the teacher was trying to show a video.
My parents have a rough powered device
This isn't how they work
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