Planet Arduino

[Joedefa] had a Griffin Beacon Universal Remote that was collecting dust, and decided that it needed to stop collecting dust. He had a growing number of wireless devices in his house and found himself in need of a remote to control them all. The Griffin Beacon fit the bill, but most of his lights and outlets were RF controlled. So he did what hackers do best… broke out the screw driver and soldering iron and rewired it!

[Joedefa] is using an Attiny85 as the brains between an infrared LED and a RF transmit module (if anyone can identify the source of this module, please let everyone know in the comments).  A pair of red and green LEDs lets him know if the remote has received commands successfully.

It’s always nice to see a discontinued product made useful once more with a little ingenuity and an Arduino some hacking skill. Hat’s off to [Joedefa] for a righteous hack!

“I don’t understand, you don’t have the technology.” OK, so it’s not actually a futuristic tool with the same capabilities as the one off the hit TV series Dr. Who, but this homemade “sonic screwdriver” is a multifunction device that’s pretty cool nonetheless.

Created around an Arduino Pro Mini, [Gunther] really one-upped the last screwdriver we featured. Built in functions include: brown note tone generator, dog whistle, EMF meter, flashlight, IR universal remote, laser pointer, ohm meter, sound level meter, voltage detector, and a voltage meter.  You can also have an electromagnet or output voltage supply if you want. If that wasn’t enough, it can even play the theme song from Star Wars! Whew. That’s a mouthful of functionality.

Although he has posted the Arduino code, you’ll have to keep an eye on his site for more details if you want to create your own. He’s mentioned that he’s working on blue prints and a full parts list… Awesome. Now where’s that lock pick function?

Check out a video showing off some of the features after the break.

[via Make]