Sending IR from my K750

November 10, 2005 4:25 PM

Capturing IR signals, and sending them from my K750i...

While on holiday in Japan I purchased a couple of TINY remote control cars for use with Japanese mobile phones, or with an included remote control.

The box has a QR code on the back, which I guess either contains the software for the phone, or links to the software for the phone on the interweb.

As the QR code is of no use to me, and neither is the software..how can I capture the IR signals from the remote control and program them to buttons on my K750 (ideally the joystick) and send them back out?

I understand It'll probably be an job for a Java application of sorts..but thats about all I know.

posted by lemonfridge to technology (3 comments total)

It's late here so no time for a full answer but I'll come back tomorrow if no-one else has chipped in.

Short answer: very doubtful. There are no APIs to control the IR port on a k750 last time I checked.
posted by blag at 6:10 PM on November 10, 2005

Sorry - went away for the weekend. Since no-one else has answered, here's my stab at your question:

First, you're going to need the IR codes. Unless there is some sort of library or documentation for these car codes, you'll need to work them out yourself. This is probably easiest done with an IR receiver attached to your PC and some software to decode them. Girder would probably do it.

Then you'll need some software to allow you to send arbitrary IR codes from your remote. This is the tricky part, for three reasons:

1. The IR range on the average phone is very short - less than a metre
2. J2ME is not an easy language to write in. Each phone has it's own idiosyncracies, libraries and capabilities. There is very little documentation available, especially for newer phones like the k750. Even a simple app like this could take days to code
3. For security reasons, Java applications have only very restricted access to the phone's internal functions. Things like bluetooth, IR and the phonebook are usually off-limits to Java apps, which run in a "sandbox" or protected area of the phone.

Point 3 is the fun killer, here. I've just checked our internal deveopment docs and the last time we tested a k700, there wasn't an infrared API. No API, no way of controlling the IR port from within Java. This may have changed with the 750 or with updated firmware but I doubt it.

There are also probably other issues, like the fact that few phones will let you send "raw" IR codes from the IR port; most will want to put some sort of wrapper around them.

So, in short: unlikely. Sorry.
posted by blag at 9:00 AM on November 13, 2005

booooo! but thanks!
posted by lemonfridge at 4:03 PM on November 13, 2005