I will post this to Facebook Arduino group.
I’ve been thinking about how the cheap clock kit I built uses a single button to step through and set the hours, minutes and seconds. It’s a bit tedious and it took me a bit of practice to get the hang of it. But it makes possible stepping through a menu of things and selecting an item. What I thought would be a good Arduino project would be to use this method to remotely set or control IoT’s from a menu of selections.
I realize that a lot of IoT fans would say, just use your smartphone to do it. Put the menu on screen and push the buttons next to them. You’re right. It’s probably the best way to do it. But what if we don’t have a smartphone, or it’s broken, or it’s not secure enough? Or let’s say I just want this to be an alternative project.
Which brings up another problem. How do I display the menu? I thought that a 27″(680mm) TV monitor would be a good way to display the menu so it could be read from a distance of 3 to 5 yards/meters. One display is not that expensive, and I could use an old 4:3 flat panel display. The problem is how to get the menu out of the Arduino and onto the display. Some way to convert the text to a VGA video signal.
But then I thought that I could save $$$ by using an existing TV to display the menu. What I could do is generate a low resolution screen, say 32 characters wide by 8 lines high. This could be read from across the room on a large screen TV. But how do I get it into the TV?
I could generate a composite video signal and plug it into the plugs in the back of the TV. But I have to switch the video source to see the menu.
I think it would be easier to generate an RF signal and the TV could be switched to Channel 3 or 4, like the old video games like Atari did. But can a modern digital TV even display an old fashioned analog signal? I think some TVs just say this format can’t be displayed or similar error messages.
I also thought about using an old B/W low resolution display of a few inches/cm across. Then project the screen onto the wall with a lens, so it can be read from across the room.
I’m looking for other similar ideas, and more brainstorming. The basic plan I want to stick to includes a single button for control, and a selection menu, with submenues if needed, to display. And the display should be viewable from a distance.
