TV Volume Loudness Guard using Arduino

UPDATES

• Mar 05, 2013 Featured on WonderHowTo http://goo.gl/fpeVC
• Feb 14, 2013 Featured on LifeHacker  http://goo.gl/tx4QG
• Feb 13, 2013  I have updated the Arduino program in step 4 to support additional remote controls.
• Feb 13, 2013 Featured on Dangerous Prototypes http://goo.gl/DJcwe
• Feb 12, 2013 Featured on Semageek  http://goo.gl/EH58K
• Feb 12, 2013 Featured on Embedds http://goo.gl/Z3egm
• Feb 12, 2013 Featured on Hackaday  http://goo.gl/8MkuE

INTRODUCTION

What can be more annoying than those TV commercials on steroid?  Here you are watching your favorite TV show when all of a sudden you are ambushed by a very loud TV commercial sending you scrambling for the remote control to turn down the volume.  

In some countries it's now illegal for broadcasters to blast the volume during commercials. But in many others, this TV audio terror is still legal.  I hope my TV Volume Loudness Guard will mitigate some of this ad-driven rudeness. 

The TV Volume Loudness Guard will listen to your TV and if the volume goes higher than a certain level, it will bring it lower. 

There are many uses for this gadget such as keeping the TV volume down when you are in a different room while the kids are watching their favorite music channels. Or when someone blasts the stereo system. The TV Loudness Guard will be ready to keep a lid on it. The TV Loudness Guard should be part of every Big Brother's bag of tricks :)

HOW THIS GADGET WORKS

Place the Arduino TV Volume Loudness Guard close to the TV set to monitor the volume. When the volume loudness of your TV exceeds a certain threshold (set by you in the program or via a trimpot), the gadget sends a Volume Down remote control code to your TV--or any other remote controlled gadget for that matter--until the TV volume falls below the pre-set level. This level can be changed in the program you upload to Arduino or with a potentiometer built into the sound sensor I am using in this project. 

WORKFLOW

There are three steps to make use of the TV Volume Loudness Guard:

1. Capture & decode your remote control Volume Down button (or any other remote function). This feature is included in my gadget. 
2. Update the TV Loudness Guard program with the remote control button code captured from step 1 and upload the program to your Arduino.
3. Power the TV Loudness Guard and place it next to your TV. Fine-tune the parameters of the Arduino program and the sound sensor's potentiometer until you get the desired results. 

Step 1: PROJECT PARTS

HARDWARE

• GOduino III or Arduino Uno. You should be able to get this project to work with most Arduinos with some tweaking. 
• Sound Sensor ($4 from ebay). I used Seeed's sound sensor
• IR 940nm LED Transmitter .($0.10 from ebay)
• IR Receiver 38Khz 3-pin not the 2-pin LEDs. ($1 from ebay) I got mine from Tayda2009. 
• 1K Ohms resistor.
• Breadboard.
• Jumper wires.
• Power:  you can use USB power or any battery that can source  7V to 12V and over 500mA.

SOFTWARE

• The Arduino IDE (Download from http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software)
• IRremote library.  Download from https://github.com/shirriff/Arduino-IRremote and extract the content of the zip file to folder Arduino\libraries\IRremote

Comments

[newbeduino]

Very cool :) How hard would it be to have it keep the volume at a certain level turn the tv down for the commericials and then back up when the quieter show comes back on.

[Edgar]

Nice!
This could be used on pubs, restaurants, and the like!
Gone to my Blog:
3D Printers from India, Nano-printing 3D printers, and an Arduino that shuts up TV ads! http://faz-voce-mesmo.blogspot.pt/2013/02/impressoras-3d-uma-da-india-outra-nano.html

[techbitar]

Glad you like it. It's more challenging in public places because of the ambient noise. But it's not difficult to read the audio signal directly from the headphone jack instead of an open mic. This could be Rev2 of the gadget.

[Edgar]

Go for it, but don't forget to Patent it, because I see all kinda crazy stuff being sold, that's not useful as that one idea...

[techbitar]

This project is based on all sorts of open source and open hardware ideas so it's only fair that it remains open :)

[Edgar]

Right you are, but if someone makes money out of manufacturing those, isn't there somewhere, some open source support thing, you can send some kind of royalties?

[zorwick]

Great project! Everybody should have one before they totally get brainwashed...I wanted something like this for decades! There were some devices many years ago to zero the volume when advertisements start but some marketing lobby stopped them to sell or built in to the TVs. Now I have to congratulate you...for me it is too late, I don't have TV for years now, because of the ads.

[techbitar]

Merci! I think dumping the TV is the ideal solution. The internet is enough nowadays.

[jessyratfink]

Excellent project. I need one of these. :D

[techbitar]

Thanks! If you build one please share your experience. The Arduino program can benefit from more intelligence with additional timing parameters. I might update it in an upcoming version.