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[SOLVED] Broken TV Remote?
My TV remote stopped working. Yes, I changed the batteries. Wondering what was going on, and staring at the infrared LED on the front of it, it suddenly occurred to me that my MacBook's built in camera is able to see infrared light (Apple even has a tip that you should point your Apple remote at your laptop's camera to see if it is still working or needs to have its batteries changed).
So I pointed the TV remote at the camera and much to my surprise, the remote's IR LED is active *all the time*, and it's pulsing (at very low frequency...low enough that I can see it). It pulses like that unless if I press a button on the remote, in which case it turns off and stays off as long as I hold the button down.
That seems backwards to me. I thought that the LED was supposed to stay off until a button on the remote control is pressed, at which point a binary signal is sent to the LED and it will emit a (fairly high frequency) pulsed signal of IR that varies depending on what command you are issuing (what button you're pressing).
Does this mean for sure that the electronics in my remote are messed up? (The LED being on when it's not supposed to be would explain why I observed that the TV's volume appear to change by itself shortly before the remote went on the fritz).
My TV remote stopped working. Yes, I changed the batteries. Wondering what was going on, and staring at the infrared LED on the front of it, it suddenly occurred to me that my MacBook's built in camera is able to see infrared light (Apple even has a tip that you should point your Apple remote at your laptop's camera to see if it is still working or needs to have its batteries changed).
So I pointed the TV remote at the camera and much to my surprise, the remote's IR LED is active *all the time*, and it's pulsing (at very low frequency...low enough that I can see it). It pulses like that unless if I press a button on the remote, in which case it turns off and stays off as long as I hold the button down.
That seems backwards to me. I thought that the LED was supposed to stay off until a button on the remote control is pressed, at which point a binary signal is sent to the LED and it will emit a (fairly high frequency) pulsed signal of IR that varies depending on what command you are issuing (what button you're pressing).
Does this mean for sure that the electronics in my remote are messed up? (The LED being on when it's not supposed to be would explain why I observed that the TV's volume appear to change by itself shortly before the remote went on the fritz).
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