The following work has been accomplished:
The CVI made very clear their need of an easy control device for as many elements of the house as possible. This led to the following design requirements:
– Must allow controlling the majority of applications possible in the house.
– Must have a graphical interface easier to use for people with disabilities.
– Must be adaptable GUI according deficiency and needs of the patient.
To meet these requirements it was necessary to develop a hardware device to control multimedia devices from the same application. This device would extend the range of devices controllable in the house. The needs of this device are added to the technical requirements stated by the UPC. Those requirements are:
– Must be able to send infrared commands for each device directly to the receiver device.
– Must be able to be controlled by wireless IP
– Must have at least four infrared outputs.
– There exists a Logitech extender that fulfils a similar function and also has four outputs that directly connects to the infrared receiver of the devices. The problem is that it can only be used with their remote controls. We need the device to multiplex both the Logitech signals and our extender device so both could use the same output.
– Must indicate through LEDs, for example, information about the device status at any time.
Being those requirements met, a simple schematic of the device required would be:
To give a more comprehensive view, a Logitech extender function that exists in the present CVI is perfectly reflected in the following diagram:
In the diagram below, there are represented the same devices as in the diagram above and all the devices needed by the extender. You can see that you can communicate with the Wi-Fi router from a mobile. Both the mobile and the router are devices present in most homes. The diagram also shows how the commands to the devices are sent:
