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Hardware to Trigger GPIO via RF or similar wireless solution?

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Thomas Lewin
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Hi all,

I've got a museum exhibit where visitors press a momentary push button switch to trigger a video. Normally, it'd be as simple as hooking up the button to the museum's LS425's GPIO inputs, but in this case I can't run a physical wire.

Anybody have suggestions for some kind of wireless relay that would trigger a GPIO event? For instance, I'm finding 433Mhz remotes where the transceiver closes a circuit just like a button, but the transmitter side is a keyfob, which wouldn't work in this case—it has to be a big honking push button.

Any hardware recommendations that would solve this need for a wireless button?

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9 comments

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    Bright Scripters

    What is the distance between the button and player?

    Are there any metal obstacles in between?

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    Thomas Lewin

    About 4m max, nearly line-of-sight, no metal. The button rests on top of a wooden bollard at accessible height. So the innards of the button are hidden inside plywood at about adult waist-height, and the LS425 is mounted on top of an UST projector about 3m above the floor.

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    Bright Scripters

    You could use a presenter (PowerPoint ) remote.
    The player would see it as usb keyboard input.

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    Thomas Lewin

    That's a nice workaround. I just need to find a way to push the remote using the push button:

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    Thomas Lewin

    As the enclosure this is all inside is putting some heavy limitations on how much I can do, thoughts on this qiachip 433 Mhz RF Tx/Rx pair? It's got built-in encoding for the signal, and if I'm reading the output correctly, the receiver should be able to trigger GPIO on the Brightsign. Or am I completely mistaken?

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FCMQ9ZG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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    Bright Scripters

    Is this helpful?
    http://www.hms-electronics.com/BrightSign/wireless_products.htm

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    Thomas Lewin

    Yes, the 4 button RF set is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

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    Bright Scripters

    Excellent!

    HMS have been making interesting solutions for many years.

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    Thomas Lewin

    As an update, while I would have much preferred to use HMS' ready-made solution had I had the lead time to get them shipped to the museum, the RF units from Qiachip worked quite well as a wireless GPIO button. I recommend having decent soldering skills, or getting the 10-pack just in case you mess one (or two, or three, in my case) up. 

     

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