Cut slots into a piece of paper to represent the IR remote control bitstream for putting your TV into standby. Insert it between your TV’s IR receiver and the flame from a lighter, and pull the slots along to generate the coded pattern. Get it just right and you have a paper and lighter remote control. That’s just what [ViralVideoLab] did and you can see it in action in the video below.

Think of this as just the germ of an idea. Imagine how you’d automate this and extend it to include more commands. A wheel with the various bitstreams cut into the circumference comes to mind. A servo would turn the wheel to the desired command and something else would fire up the lighter just as the slots pass by. Now take it a little further. You already have a remote control with keypad and IR light. Hack that to talk to a microcontroller which would control the servo and the IR light. And there you go. A useless but fun hack (hint hint).

And before you do cry useless. Hackers are no stranger to making useless machines as long as it’s a fun hack. Take this world’s biggest useless AI machine for example. Or what about this book scanner with unseeing eyes. Or there’s this endlessly fun to watch classic useless machine that turns itself off, but with eight switches.

Thanks to [ttl] for sending us the tip about this.