Using a Phone Camera to test a Remote Control
Here’s another unusual use for a phone camera. It’s a simple test to see if your TV remote control is working.
Since digital cameras are sensitive to infra-red light, you can simply point your remote at the camera and you will see the flashing of the infra-red beam on the phone’s screen, digital technology making the invisible visible!
This reminds me of something I did recently.
I whipped up a quick programmable logic configuration to multiplex four 7-segment LEDs @ 1 kHz, sufficiently fast that you can’t see that they’re multiplexed.
I decided to point my digital camera at it in its fastest shutter mode. Looking at the LEDs through the camera’s display revealed the scanning pattern!
Cool!
Thanks a million, that was very helpfull and saved my time while trying to figure out if my remote went bad or the sensor on my portable DVD player
I actually did this yesterday. I whipped up an infrared LED finger attachment to use to control my computer with my wiimote, and because I did this in a location different than my computer I had no way to check if it worked. Quick thinking and I pulled out my phone and BINGO my LED’s were working.