Recently, our friends over at Adafruit released a new version of their popular TV-B-Gone kit. Built in cooperation with [Mitch Altman], the inventor of the TV-B-Gone, the new kit sports four high power IR LEDs, two wide beam and two narrow beam. The four LEDs give the new TV-B-Gone increased range, with a maximum distance of over 150ft. One of the most impressive features of the kit is the fact that the new TV-B-Gone is universal and can now work in Europe and Asia in addition to the US. Users are able to select which region they want to use during the build process by soldering a resistor into the board at their region’s corresponding spot as seen in the picture above. The new TV-B-Gone kit is now available in the Adafruit store for $19.95 plus shipping.
Adafruit Releases New TV-B-Gone Kit
Just so everyone knows, using one of these is illegal. (In civil court, not criminal. In other words you can be sued for it. But you can’t go to jail for it.)
In any case, you should also know that I am working on a detector for these devices – it will sound an alarm when one of them is used, and take a picture of the user by triangulating their position.
The idea is to give businesses the tool they need to be able to swear out trespass warrants against the users, so that next time they enter the business, they can be immediately arrested.
On a more productive note. the crappy brand of lcd tv I own (westinghouse) is not supported. Nor is it supported by any universal remote, which is probably the reason. So if you really want to protect your bars tv’s buy a westinghouse, they are both garbage and secure. ;-)
Leaving your TV open to such devices is no different than leaving your WiFi open and complaining when you are “hacked”. Any publicly open/shared communication port is up for grabs if the default factory setting is open to the public and you leave it open. Learn how to operate your equipment and you will not have a problem. It seems like every device you purchase these days can hacked remotely. It is up to you to educate yourself and purchase a TV that is secure.
My TV-B-Gone is not powerful enough, I would like one of those 300ft suckers! Is there a kit? also, is it possible to add more codes such as PVR, X-BOX, etc…? Maybe a larger capacity chip or even a second chip?
Hi, I’m selling my 2017 version TV-B-Gone http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/322425850293