The Bluetooth Low Energy remote control reference design, combines advanced capacitive touch sensing technology with Bluetooth 4.1-compliant connectivity, providing a versatile solution.
In the Internet of Things (IoT) era, connected devices continue to advance in intelligence. Smartphones, smart homes, smart cars, smart appliances, and even smart TVs are notable examples. However, while TVs have become smarter, the same cannot be said for their accompanying remote controls. The emergence of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) remote controls presents a potential solution to the limitations of traditional remote controls. These innovative remote controls utilize Bluetooth technology, offering a wireless and convenient means of controlling smart devices such as smart TVs. Cypress Semiconductor has launched CY5672 Programmable Radio-on-a-Chip (PRoC) BLE remote control reference design kit to simplify the design process. The design provides a fully functional implementation of a BLE or Bluetooth Smart remote control, leveraging the PRoC BLE single-chip solution. This powerful chip integrates advanced capacitive touch sensing, an energy-efficient ARM Cortex-M0 CPU core, Bluetooth 4.1-compliant Bluetooth Smart connectivity, and a balun that minimizes the requirement for external components. With these features, the remote control design is ready to use and delivers optimal performance with a compact form factor.
The remote control design offers versatile connectivity options, allowing it to connect to various host devices such as Personal Computers (PCs), smart Televisions (TVs), tablets, and smartphones. The connection can be established using Bluetooth Smart or Universal Serial Bus (USB). The remote control can also be connected to any Bluetooth Smart or Bluetooth Smart Ready host device. The design offers a range of features that can be utilized with a PC, smart TV, tablet, or smartphone. When connected to a PC or smart TV, the remote control enables various gestures on the trackpad. These include single-finger tracking for mouse cursor movement, single-finger taps for left-click and double-taps for double-click, two-finger taps for right-click, two-finger pinch in/out for zooming, and single-finger swipes at the right and bottom edges for vertical and horizontal scrolling respectively. The remote control also includes buttons for left-click and right-click and volume control buttons for adjusting the volume. For smart TVs, additional advanced features are supported, such as a power button to switch the TV on or off, channel control buttons to change channels, source buttons to switch audio-video inputs, and a return button for returning to the previous view on a smart TV.
The reference design has IR-based wireless connectivity, making it compatible with legacy host devices like TVs that lack Bluetooth Smart or USB support. Over IR, the remote control supports features such as a power button for turning the TV on or off, volume control buttons, channel control buttons for changing channels, a source button to switch audio-video inputs, and a return button for navigating back on a smart TV. Two AAA batteries connected in series operate the remote control, delivering a maximum output voltage of 3 V. The entire circuit of the remote control operates at this 2.1 V voltage level.
Cypress Semiconductor has tested this reference design. It comes with a Bill of Material (BOM), schematics, etc. You can find additional data about the reference design on the company’s website. To read more about this reference design, click here.
