Tuesday 23 February 2010

Bluetooth remote control for home entertainment

I can imagine devices like televisions and DVD/Blu-Ray players coming with Bluetooth interfaces in the future and iPhone remote control applications rather than physical remotes.
This means no searching for the right remote, no losing it (because you can just load the program on another handset), as many duplicate controllers as you have phones in the house and finally that we can have $5 universal remote programs on the app store rather than $100 devices.

The trouble with that scenario is that not everyone would have a compatible mobile device to load the program, so you'd still need the old-fashioned infra-red remote too. Also, a Bluetooth interface would definitely take more power than the infra-red version.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - There would probably still be stand-alone universal remotes for sale.
PPS - They would just have to be compatible with the Bluetooth programs instead.

4 comments:

Stuey said...

There's already a few out for there for the iPhone if you use a Windows Media Centre PC, some that use bluetooth and one called Air Mouse which acts like a mouse and keyboard for the computer over a wireless connection

John said...

That's in the direction of what I'm talking about. I suppose as media centre PCs start to replace DVD and Blu-Ray players, we'll see more of it.

Anonymous said...

The problem I see is that Bluetooth still has a very limited range of only 15 to 20 feet so even though it works through walls it is not a significant improvement over IR. It is much more likely that we'll see an RF standard like Zigbee or Z-wave become more and more prevalent because of their range and the fact that the mesh networks actually IMPROVE as you add devices.

John said...

Good point. The specific technology doesn't matter as long as it's widely supported.