Summary
With additional engineering on power consumption, and using a proper antenna, the remote control could meet its functionality goal. At a $72 BOM cost, in 1000 unit locally manufactured quantity, including labor and packaging, it is a bit costly. Sourcing it overseas would certainly drive that price down. Many challenges were overcome, many lessons were learned, some unfortunately obvious:
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Zealous pursuit of power savings is
also critical in hardware and software design. The remote as designed, with little attention to power management beyond screen shutoff, will stay
charged for only about 24 hours. With additional hardware &
software work, this could probably be extended to a week (shutoff 3.3V
regulator when remote is in sleep mode; put the Atmega 2560 to sleep at its lowest possible power level whenever feasible; add physical power push button for turn-on after 30 minutes of inaction).
In the end, the remote works. It would have been highly desirable for the screen to have been capacitive touch but the resistive touch functions nicely. A proper antenna would be needed in a new iteration.
In the end, the remote works. It would have been highly desirable for the screen to have been capacitive touch but the resistive touch functions nicely. A proper antenna would be needed in a new iteration.