The Remotophone is a fully functional TV remote that looks like a Cortelco touch tone phone.  To use it, you lift the handset and press a key.  For example, “*” is Power, 3 is Volume Up, 2 is Input, etc.

I just finished building it today, and while I won’t try to recreate every step, I’m going to list out the resources and techniques I used to get it going.  It looks identical to the image in this post.

Parts

• - Cortelco Phone
• - Arduino Board (I used an Uno, you can probably use any kind)
• - IR LED (and corresponding resistor)
• - IR Receiver (for decoding your remote control’s codes)
• - General Maker Junk (wires, solder, tools, tape, etc)

Code

• - Ken Shirriff’s IR Library
• - Keypad Library
• - My Remotophone code (you’ll have to modify this based on your remote codes / protocol; I recommend writing your own)

There’s no complicated instructions, you basically glue the two libraries together and have the IR Library send out TV remote codes based on the input from the Keypad.  Before you build your phone you’ll have to capture your specific remote’s control codes.  You can use the IR Library example code and wiring to do this.   One final thing is that you should use the switch inside the phone that’s turned on when you lift the headset, otherwise you’ll drain your battery.  It’s already all set up inside the phone, you just have to have to splice it into the battery wire.

Here’s what it looked like when I was done but before I remounted the case.  It’s pretty fragile and I’m not an engineer so please forgive the mess and lack of mounting brackets or real electrical tape :-P

Nearing completion now, just have to program cool patterns.

Not quite done yet, still needs glow sticks and cooler patterns.

And yes, I’m aware the form factor doesn’t match either real helmet, but for my purposes it’s enough.