Raspberry Pi IR remote

Connect an LED with a limiting resistor to Raspberry Pi's GPIO pins, and you can control the diode using code written in your preferred scripting language. However, if you can make the LED blink using the Raspberry Pi, couldn't you turn the little machine into an infrared (IR) remote control using an IR LED instead? It's possible, but it does require a handful of additional components and some work.

Although the idea of turning a Raspberry Pi into a glorified IR transmitter might sound like an interesting academic exercise, the final result can be used as a versatile replacement for a humble remote control. The most obvious advantage of using a Raspberry Pi-based IR remote control is that you can program it via scripts. You can also add some clever functionality on top. For example, you can write a simple server that makes it possible to access and control the Raspberry Pi-based IR transmitter from any machine or device.

Building and Testing an IR LED Circuit

Although you can connect an IR LED directly to GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi, the LED's output signal will be too weak, and the IR transmitter will have a very limited range. A simple transistor circuit solves the problem by amplifying the current output from a pin and thus increasing the IR LED's signal strength.

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