this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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Chaotic Good

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Source: https://bsky.app/profile/funnysnarkyjoke.bsky.social/post/3lmkfwebeuc27

In fact you can use your smartphone to change the channel on nearly any TV. In the comments on that post some people talk about how to do it. Basically you need a smartphone with either builtin IR or use a USB-C IR blaster or if your phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack you can also try one of those but I'm not sure if the 3.5mm ones are as commonly supported.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Have you tried a TV-B-Gone?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I was at a hospital waiting room one night for an ex’s mother’s injury. I’m not family so I had to wait in the waiting room, which had Fox News blaring. They wouldn’t change it. I couldn’t change it. But I could unplug all the TVs.

Nurse ratchet did not like that one bit.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I sometimes (jokingly) wonder if Hospitals show Fox News to try to get repeat business, and I don't mean repeat business due to people who enjoy Fox coming back, I mean due to health complications caused by the stress of watching it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Watching fox news does not cause you stress. It causes stress for all the people around you.

My grandpa got a dose of fox news for a while, and it took a long conversation to convince him that there is not a county in Michigan that is more that 50% Somali immigrants.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Really expensive for the use case.

I considered it recently but then the flipper zero community was like "Spend $15 bucks for a universal remote man."

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

haha im in the middle of switching careers into IT/CS and I figured it would be a good investment for the future or at least to tinker with. I've just had to focus on other things for certs I need, so no time to really dive into it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

I have one, for a year now or so. But haven't use dit much really. And now the flipper one is announced. So I wished I waited and bought that one instead.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'd wait a bit. The flipper one is announced.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Citation needed. All I can find are YouTube videos from random accounts that aren't Flipper Devices. Nothing in writing and especially not from the company.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Apparently it was announced but later removed from their website. See this article

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

And I need to learn to use mine better. All I got is a couple of neat magic tricks like turning off TVs or scanning people's cats lol

Just been too busy learning other things lately I guess

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Yeah same here. Not really using it for anything other than that. Oh and opening tesla charge ports.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

scanning people's cats

... Pardon?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

haha some people have their pets microchipped so they can be scanned and returned to the owner if lost. If you run the flipper over the right spot (and in the right mode), generally between the shoulder blades, it'll tell you if they're chipped and read out some of the data.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

if chip == True: print("is cat") else: print("might not be cat")

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

my universal remote ✂️

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Instead of the TV-B-Gone, there should be a TV-1-Channel-Up device that just changes the channel. If the TV in the doctor's office turns off, it will get noticed by the reception desk and probably be turned back on in a few minutes. If the TV is on a different channel, the desk is much less likely to notice any time soon (at least not before you've been called back into the exam room).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

TVs at my local doctors office took the prescription commercials to a new level and now just run an ad feed all day.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

In fact you can use your smartphone to change the channel on nearly any TV. In the comments on that post some people talk about how to do it. Basically you need a smartphone with either builtin IR or use a USB

I don't think have seen phone with built in IR in a decade.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oppo is still including them

[–] [email protected] 3 points 19 hours ago

And Xiaomi, Oneplus R series.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

The last one with IR I had was a Siemens mobile. Not even a smart phone. That was about 25ish years ago.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Android+usbc+ir+blaster

Me either, but the phone will commonly have a USV-C port

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I saw a video on a new budget phone recently that had IR. I think only the Chinese brands like Xiaomi, Vivo, and OnePlus are the ones carrying the torch at this point... But not even on all phones they release.

I carried around my old HTC One M7 in my laptop bag for YEARS after I had upgraded explicitly for the IR blaster. It's probably in there still right now in fact.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Yeah, since it was mostly used for data connections between phones. It was replaced once bluetooth got a little bit better.

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