The backstory: Many years ago, I bought an old Sanyo PLC-XU48 from Craigslist for $50. Since then, I’ve used it as a TV to watch videos and movies and play games. The resolution (1024x768) isn’t great by today’s standards, but at a distance it’s fine for my use.

The problem: Recently, the power button on the remote has decided to only work a tiny fraction of the time, which is really frustrating when trying to double-press it to turn off the projector.

First attempt at a solution: A new remote? Boring. Serial is much more exciting! I have some Particle Photon boards, which are Arduino-like microcontrollers with WiFi and I wanted to use one to communicate with the projector through its serial “SERVICE” port instead of using the remote. This would also let me integrate it with Home Assistant or write a web interface.