I have a fun one. The front door to my house had an automatic door opener, paired with a single-button remote control to unlock and open the door. The remote co

I have a fun one. The front door to my house had an automatic door opener, paired with a single-button remote control to unlock and open the door. The remote control was annoying to carry and use. (This was before IoT became a thing.) I pried open the remote, soldered on an extra circuit bypassing the push switch, and hooked it up to an Arduino. When a packet is sent over serial, the Arduino simulates a button push: const int basePin = 2; void triggerRemote() { digitalWrite(basePin, HIGH); delay(2000); digitalWrite(basePin, LOW); } void setup() { pinMode(basePin, OUTPUT); Serial.begin(9600); } void loop() { if (Serial.available() > 0) { Serial.read(); triggerRemote(); } } This was paired with a tiny web server to do the serial write: #!/opt/bin/python2.6 PORT = 5525 import BaseHTTPServer, SocketServer class LoccaHTTPRequestHandler(BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler): server_version = "LoccaServer/1.0" def do_GET(self): if self.path.startswith("/trigger"): serial.write('A') self.send_response(200) else: self.send_error(404) serial = open("/dev/ttyACM0", 'wb', 0) httpd = SocketServer.TCPServer(("", PORT), LoccaHTTPRequestHandler, False) httpd.allow_reuse_address = True httpd.server_bind() httpd.server_activate() httpd.serve_forever() Finally I threw together an iPhone app with the most basic UI imaginable: a static full-screen photo of the remote; tap once, it fires off a HTTP request, and the door swings open: - (IBAction)triggerRemote:(id)sender { NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:@"http://10.0.8.48:5525/trigger"]; NSURLRequest *request = [NSURLRequest requestWithURL:url]; [NSURLConnection connectionWithRequest:request delegate:nil]; } That's basically all of the code. Considering how much of a janky hack this is, it worked great. Ancient write-up with some photos: https://web.archive.org/web/20120103180640/http://ghughes.com/blog/2011/11/27/locca-sure-touch-plus-iphone-plus-arduino/ https://web.archive.org/web/20120103180640/http://ghughes.co...