Tv-b-gone Now B A Cellphone

TV B GONE CELL

Allright, we all should know about the handy device that came out awhile back called tv-b-gone and how it shuts off tv’s by holding down a button. problem is, it’s pretty easy to spot if you’re an awesome best buy security guard wearing that coveted yellow shirt, so you’re risking revealing yourself somewhat by using it. however, if you were to say, disguise it completely as a cellphone by totally redoing the whole thing, then you may be able to casually stroll by those TVs while “chatting on the cellie” and get out alive.

by alive we mean casually strolling out of best buy or an electronics store. very impressive idea here.

thanks [AJ]

33 thoughts on “Tv-b-gone Now B A Cellphone

  1. Hey, what would I need to build something like this from the ground up? Codes, blaster, and everything? I wouldn’t mind if storage were to be done with an audio device like an iPod. I just want to know if there is a place that I could learn how to make an IR blaster. A code as wav repository would be cool, too. If not, someone should start one. I’d do it if I were more organized.

  2. Or you could simply remote-mount the actual IR Emitter LED in a hat or something, connected by fine wires to the unit or a remotely mounted switch) in one’s pocket.

    Or build it to automatically operate every so often and leave it in range of the TVs at a store, turning all the sets off and on, or turning them off after they’ve been reset.

    Screw that one-time stuff man, you wanna change someone’s day at the store?

    muhahahaha

  3. so… he just dremeled the case and put in something he bought?… wow.

    i don’t want to detract from the idea though, it is a good thing to turn off the TV sometimes (unless M*A*S*H is on), but i think this is ome of the things that should go in hackaday links section, or maybe the new lazy thing (which is a great idea, mine fits inside my pen, with the on/off switch connected to the opener of the pen, total stealth)

  4. here you go folks:

    http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5770495783&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1

    that’s me and i have hundreds of dummy cell phones to sell. i hav them in a number of makes models and styles. most are brand new dummy phones for displays. they come complete with screens that have fake displays. only a few are listed so far. if you want a particular make / model / size shoot me an e-mail off my ebay account.

  5. Just an idea… Someone should try using the TV remote with the $1 IR Port hack that was posted a week or so ago and find out the signals it emits. Then the true rebels could make their own TV remote. [Evil Laugh]

  6. somone needs to come up w/ a way to reset the tvbg with a reset button, so once the target is zapped you can reset it w/o waiting till the remainder of the 69 seconds, cuz its kinda hard to tell when its up unless your really paying attention, and you never know if the button really activated because sometimes it takes a wile to zap a tv- sometimes u might be tyring to zap one and the button didnt respond

  7. if you take the battaries out, or disurpt hte power to teh tvbg it resets it self, now i need to figure out how to add a switch so i can do it w/o opening it up and pulling a battarie out,, any ideas? i cant figureout where i would place the switch to properly inturupt the power and i dont wnat to fux it up-

  8. blah i figured out where the negative and postive are, but i dont see a way to add a switch w/o scraping the shiit out of the pcb, argh i dont wnat to do a lot of work.

  9. blah i figured out where the negative and postive are, but i dont see a way to add a switch w/o scraping the shiit out of the pcb, argh i dont wnat to do a lot of work.

  10. hey spy…the way i’m rigging my reset button is thus:
    – take out the 2 batteries on the top of the unit
    – solder wires to the battery contacts on the board, one + one –
    – sandwich the batteries together (elec. tape or whathaveyou) and connect them to the wires you soldered to the board.
    – put the switch somewhere inline so it *interrupts* the flow of electricity from the batteries to the device.

  11. Back in the day, when I didn’t have a cellphone, I used an old Handspring Visor for the same thing. Downloaded a nice TV remote app, and used the infrared port to mess with TVs everywhere. It could be “taught”, so I also had it turn off my teacher’s remote-controlled stereo system whenever I entered the room. Man, good times.

  12. hehe, thats funny, i do that all the time with my psp… and its totally unsuspecting, for all they know, im just playing GTA or something. only time somebody caught on was when an 8 year old noticed i wasn’t actually playing anything, shows who the more observant of the two are :P

  13. Was wondering why there is no correct link to the phone hack anymore ,I no it is years old but nowhere else on the web has a good tutorial or visual and I was just needing some help cus I have an old phone but dnt no how to fix it up for my tv b gone or just use a dummy phone and even then how to consrtuct everything

    Help wud be appreciated

  14. This is a very old article, but the idea is great! It is very difficult to use the traditional TV-B-GONE remote device in somewhere busy and public…such as a Delta airport lounge. ;) Or at BestBuy as some of the other comments mention. I have always been scared to try it at BestBuy because of the IR-sensitive security cameras, and the awkwardness of holding the standard TV-B-GONE unit and pointing it at the wall of TVs.

    My son and I just had this idea (to put the TV-B-GONE circuit in a cell phone) and Googled it and found this article. The genius of putting the TV-B-GONE circuit into a small defunct cell phone is that you can stand wherever you want and simply push the KILL button, and NOBODY will every suspect that the reason the golf game just went black is because of the geek talking on the cell phone!

    In our design, the LEDs will be on the right side of the phone as you look at th screen, so when I hold it in my left hand against my head, the LEDs are pointing right at the TV as I look at it. The KILL button will be flush mounted in the back of the phone so I can hold the phone with my index finger on the button…a very natural way that people hold cell phones.

    Mitch A. (the guy who invented TV-B-GONE) is a genius! And I know him personally so I know. ;)

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