Identify Components For Arduino To Pair With ONN 4K Pro Streaming Device

Development Boards Arduino
1

I need to identify the components required to pair an arduino to a ONN 4K Pro Streaming Device to establish bluetooth connectivity.

Once connected, I’ll write the programming code to send multiple key codes to the device (like a remote) to select an app, select menu choices and favorite channel.

The overall goal: My wife had a brain aneurysm that limited her short memory. I would like to program the arduino with a small keyboard so she can push one button to go to the correct channel in the ONN 4K Pro Streaming Device to watch her favorite programs on TV. The push of one button would send the required remote key codes and millisecond delays to navigate through the app (CUE) to select the correct channel. Other buttons would be labeled to provide other functions.

While I have heard of a device named, HC-05, thatmight be helpful with this project, I’m looking for any assistance or ideas from anyone on this forum.

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Yea, the HC-05 could be used…we don’t sell them, but we do sell a few flavors of BLE/bluetooth devices that might also work, like SparkFun BlueSMiRF v2 - Headers - SparkFun Electronics

You’d essentially wire a module to the Arduino (or, instead of Arduino + module you could pick something like SparkFun Pro nRF52840 Mini - Bluetooth Development Board - SparkFun Electronics that has bluetooth native) and pair them up, then go to town

You might be able to accomplish something similar using a bluetooth scanner app on a phone (to learn the message format) and a 2nd app?

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Thank you TS

4

HI TS,

Can you recommend a bluetooth scanner app?

Thanks, Lance

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I have an Android and used one called “BLE Scanner” by Blue Pixel on the Google Play Store and it helped me find/track a device’s data output. I live in an apt and there were 300+ bluetooth devices appearing lol

6

HI TS,

Thanks for the information!

Does the SparkFun Pro nRF52840 Mini - Bluetooth Development Board use the AVRCP bluetooth profile to communicate to other devices? The reason why I ask, I’m under the impression that I would need the AVRCP bluetooth profile running on any device when I attempt to communicate to the ONN 4K Pro Streaming Device like a hand held remote control. But I don’t know if this assumption is correct or not.

What do you think?

Thanks, Lance

7

I looked into this a bit more and it looks like we’re both on the wrong path (just a bit though!)

It appears the ONN doesn’t use avrcp for navigation/selection…that’s for play/pause and such, but it looks like it does accept bluetooth HID inputs, which give us a good option

The ESP32 inside can run a Bluetooth keyboard library (like ESP32-BLE-Keyboard). When you pair it with the ONN 4K Pro, the streaming box will see it as a Bluetooth keyboard. That means you can send arrow keys, Enter, Home, and media commands from your programmed sketch. Your code would read a button press, then fire off a sequence of HID keycodes with delays in between to navigate the CUE app and land on the right channel. One button = one complete macro.

The board also has a Qwiic connector, so if you want to avoid hand-wiring a bunch of buttons, you could plug in a Qwiic button or qwiic keypad board, and add buttons simlarly - side note: disable all but one set of i2c pull-up resistors if you daisy-chain multiple qwiic devices

I’d recommend grabbing this plus a handful of momentary buttons to start prototyping. Once you confirm the ONN box pairs and responds to the keyboard commands, you can refine the macro timing, delays, and button layout for your wife’s use

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Hi TS,

Thank you so much for your analysis!

Lance