With the increasing use of remote controllers to control consumer devices such as TVs, Blu-ray players, air-conditioners, stereos and DVD players, many consumers are increasingly finding it difficult to store all the different controllers for the different consumer devices in homes today.
With the increased adoption and penetration of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, these mobile devices offer the potential to be used as universal remote controllers. Furthermore, because these mobile devices can connect to manufacturers' websites, they can be used to download the IR codes used by manufacturers, and update these codes as necessary.
While some prior devices are capable of converting an audio signal output through a stereo headphone jack into an infrared (IR) remote control signal, these prior devices are limited in terms of the frequencies that can be used for transmission to below 40 kHz. Further, such prior devices are limited in the amount of power generated, which results in weak infrared signals being transmitted.