Television Mouse Concept - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2025, 04:10:29 am
content: an open source conceptthe invention of a Television Mouse for home theatre & browsing the internet in the living room from a sofa, without the need for a table top surface.particularly when in the reclining position on a sofa.the goal of the television mouse is the invention of a hand-held pointing device that the viewer points at the television when touching a metallic button on the device.the function of waving or moving the television mouse moves two-dimensional motion relative to the television screen very accurately in theory.similar to a computer mouse & the on screen cursor used by the Windows OS. the metallic button in theory works as a three mode switch. off , on & Click.this was an incomplete invention, an attempt I made from about 2010 inspired by the Nintendo Wii motion-tracking controls at the time.this text and the PC hand drawing illustration -see diagram. is all that remains of the project.I coined the term television mouse as this best describes the purpose of the pointing device.this is not about software. the pointing device hardware is connected to a PC that uses a high definition television screen as its monitor.I abandoned the project in 2017 as it was way over my head. for my home theatre / PC gaming system.television mouse can in theory be part of the televisions Infrared remote control. in so sharing the same hand-held pointing device enclosure.-see diagram illustration .the technical aspects of the television mouse concept.this is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface but as a television in a room has no surface.So a surface of microscopic red or infrared dots is projected at the user holding the pointing device and so is projected from were the television screen is located .the hand held pointing device has a 30 x 30mm frosted window pointing at the microscopic red or Infrared dot projector in the room.the hand held pointing device uses a PC computer mouse optoelectronic sensor that with a lens assembly inside the television mousefocusing on the 30 x 30cm frosted window.when the microscopic red dots are projected at the television mouse a virtual surface is seen by the computer mouse optoelectronic sensor inside the pointing device.in doing so movement of the pointing device is detected relative to the surface of the television in the room.Not the tilting of the pointing device. in doing so a virtual vertical table top is seen by the pointing device. -see diagram illustration .the television mouse also uses two metallic mouse buttons labelled A and B and a scroll wheel.the television mouse has 3 modes- off , touch-on and click. the scroll wheel also has a click too but this is the same as touch-on.when touching either of the metallic mouse buttons the television mouse becomes active and a signal is sent to the dot projector to start generating the virtual vertical table top.when clicking either the two metallic mouse buttons is the same function as a computer mouse. the scroll wheel must be clicked to make the television mouse active.the television mouse switches off when either the two metallic mouse buttons is not been touched or the scroll wheel is not pressed down.also the dot projector switches off.I cannibalized many used optical mice for the electronics so I could make and test the concept.did some experiments with the use of optical computer mouse. particularly the lens optics of the optoelectronic sensor.a capacitive touch circuit was connected to the two metallic mouse buttons as the switch on or boot circuit for the device.this also had to be transmitted back to the projector that was controlled by the red surface tracking LED on the optical mouse pcb.I was repurposing the electronics of an optical PC mouse to track 2 or 3mm sized red dots projected at it from the were the television was located over 3 meters away.I had some health concerns about infrared dots projected at the users eyes when using the device.generating and projecting the microscopic red dots in to a room proved more difficult.this illuminated the surface of 30 x 30mm frosted window on the front of the hand-held television mouse that was facing the television and the dot projector.I tried reflecting light off a compact disc CD surface to make and project microscopic red dots into a room in daylight did not work as expected.I bought, then cannibalized a secondhand 2011 Xbox Kinect camera for its microscopic infrared optical filter in its dot projector. but did not successfully got around to making it work.as there was this high-power infrared LED inside the Xbox Kinect unit that needed a power supply driver circuit fabricated for it.if anyone is interested in doing experiments with this type of television remote control concept, particularly for home theatre. here is my open source concept.if interested in the ergonomics of television remote controls, particularly the concept of browsing the internet from your TV. subscription free YouTube.IMO most TV remote controls have poor ergonomics. here is a design for a television mouse device. -see diagram illustrationreinventing the wheelthe invention of a television mouse has already been accomplished. google-Wireless Air Mouse Remote Control with Keyboard

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2025, 07:11:34 pm
content: I used to use a Logitec trackball.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2025, 07:56:06 pm
content: My wife's LG flatscreen TV also has this feature. Point and click using the remote. Not that my wife ever uses it though.. The main problem is that 'apps' on a TV go obsolete within 2 years or so.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2025, 08:00:18 pm
content: Our LG TV has something like this too. I think it's just an accelerometer/gyro in the remote and since the remote can be assumed to be pointed at the TV and the cursor needn't go off screen, it's easy enough to make it work using just that inertial information. I assume it communicates wirelessly (RF) since it updates fairly quickly but I haven't investigated it in great detail.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2025, 12:29:52 am
content: I just use a common keyboard and mouse on the connected PC.

author: pardo-bsso
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2025, 11:04:01 am
content: Nice idea.In the good-and-old CRT times more than one game "console" had a similar feature, mostly with guns.I miss playing those.