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The stuff that interested us is how he sniffed out the IR signals, figured out the SPI protocol used by the front panel controller, and implemented SPI-slave mode for the ESP8266. Further, his browser interface was integrated with information from the service providers website letting him do scheduling and recording of programs. The result was bidirectional interactivity from within a browser, allowing him to send commands and receive status information as well as providing a user-friendly search interface. The software, on the other hand, required a lot more work consisting of code running on the ESP itself, several HTML pages and JavaScript code for the browser front end, and a few scripts running in the background. He also set it up as an SPI slave to the front panel VFD display controller and connected it to the debug serial interface of the VOOcorder as well. added an ESP8266 and hooked it up to the IR receiver on the set-top box. It’s a simple device controlled either via an IR remote or front panel buttons. The VOOcorder doesn’t have any WiFi hardware or browser / app based interfaces. The device in question is an old VOOcorder – a Cisco set-top box provided by VOO, his cable service provider in Belgium.
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Gave a fresh lease of life to an old set top box by adding a few Euro’s worth of hardware and some software smarts.
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