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 1 week ago

Have you tried a TV-B-Gone?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week 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] 7 points 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days 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] 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

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

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

That article is over a year old and was itself referring to events a year before that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

YT link

If I am to believe this youtuber, the flipper zero creator shared info with him on the flipper one. I know, it's thin, but it's also not a hoax imo. It's just impossible to guess where the development currently is.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week 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 1 week ago

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

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

scanning people's cats

... Pardon?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week 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 1 week ago

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

my universal remote ✂️

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week 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 1 week 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] 29 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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 week ago (1 children)

Oppo is still including them

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

And Xiaomi, Oneplus R series.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week 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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