I made a quick gallery of my recent adventure taking apart two remotes which is shared below:
Sony Bravia TV Universal Remote
Onn 4K Plus Streaming Device Remote
Procedure: Both remotes had plastic tabs holding them together. I was able to pry them apart with a guitar pick (credit card would work too) and separate the body from the internal remote board. The Sony remote (Green circuit board) was kind enough to label the component as “MIC1” with the screen printing so I flipped it over and removed the black adhesive covering over the Mic hole. The Mic hole is very small and I did try a few things before settling for a #1 flathead screwdriver from my iFixIt kit. The irony of using that kit to destroy something is not lost on me here. Anyway, I placed the screwdriver into the empty Mic hole and applied firm even pressure and let the flathead dig into the board. I went slow and could tell I was making progress when the Mic component on the other side of the board lifted away. At that point I backed out the screwdriver and used tweezers to pull off the Mic. Then quick reassembly and testing and all functions were good!
For the Onn 4k Plus Streaming remote (Black circuit board) I was able to follow the same procedure above where I used the pick to open the remote, used the screwdriver to apply even pressure to screw into the Mic hole and lift the component from underneath until I could get tweezers under it. I did however encounter an issue where a copper trace lifted with the component. It was very thin and I peeled back only enough to get a razor blade under it and sever it from the board. Then re-assemble and tested with no issues. All in all, for me with experience taking electronics apart it was about 20 minutes of working. I have one more Onn remote and a Samsung remote with a solar charger on the back to do next.
To get ahead of the comments on why I didn’t use a razor blade or heat gun to remove the mic: I tried a razor blade at first on the Sony remote but discovered that the component was soldered so close to the board that I would have to destroy the screenprint to get underneath it. Unfortunately I don’t trust myself with a heat gun either since I didn’t have Kapton tape to protect the other components.
If there is enough interest I can post the reassembled remotes for matching them or images of the Samsung remote surgery when I do it as well. Hope you all find this encouraging for how to do it on your own!
Gallery of Images: https://postimg.cc/gallery/tHX4fyD
That gallery site was an interesting choice for a post on privacy… My phone has an extra mic installed after trying to navigate it.
Lemmy would only let me upload one photo and while I don’t upload galleries often, I know Imgur is not the way to go anymore. Is there a privacy-based free image hosting site I should be using?
You can just… not put your TV on the internet?
It was revealed that LG TVs record and store conversation data and screen data until they are able to phone home, including scanning surrounding WiFi connections and connect to free hotspots automatically.
Dumb TVs are a bit more expensive, but definitely worth it.
I just never let my tv connect to the internet and intercept the HDMI CEC using a usb CEC interceptor on my Linux box and run everything off of that. I’m more afraid of screen capture or transcription than any sort of audio TV manufacturers may pick up, so I make the tv dumb and my own hardware smart and open source.
Most TVs support both Infrared (IR) and Bluetooth. Just get an IR remote and take the battery out of the old one. I just got a basic IR-only one for an LG TV for $6. Works like a charm.
My hot take: if you can’t trust the microphone in the device, you can’t trust the device and shouldn’t be using it at all to begin with.
So you’re saying not tech savvy people should not use devices? I think it’s nice being able to remove the mic.
Good point up until every available device has that “feature”. Eventually diy is the only way to go.
This is why technological workarounds are not a substitute for consumer protection regulation.
I mean, yeah. But that’s not the reality we live in.
We are pretty much already there.
Diy as in make a good device like kodi box, right?
right?
point of op still stands.
Never liked the idea of talking to a remote, and found the massive netflix button on my sony remote really offensive.
I’ve happily used a third party universal remote instead.I liked it at first because I thought it would let my bypass the horrendous on-screen keyboard. Then I learned that these things are likely recording even when the button isn’t pressed and I decided on this project. I’ll take garbage on-screen keyboard over eavesdropping remotes any day.
You can (most likely) connect your phone to the TV to write but i don’t know hoe goof of an idea it is from a privacy POV
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading all these threads where people take pliers to their tv remotes.
Just use a razor blade to cut the traces. If you don’t know that you got them use a multimeter beep test to measure on either side of your cut.
There’s a chance that the trace leads to other ‘critical’ components and you may need to bridge the contacts.
There is also the chance that the PCB has more than 2 layers and the traces connecting the microphone to the next component (which could be BGA mounted, such as a pin of an IC) is inaccessable.
I have never seen any implementation of a microphone that has “critical” components in series with it.
I’d advise against that from an engineering perspective because microphone failure is often a break in the conductive path and standard troubleshooting of non audio in failures generally doesn’t place a high priority on checking mics for continuity.
Even on a throwaway component like a remote, requiring microphone continuity would introduce unnecessary complexity and more chance for problems.
This is true, the mic did not appear to be in series with anything critical since I did lift a trace in the Onn remote. When I looked at the board I saw how small and close together the traces were. I didn’t have the datasheet for the model of Mic I found on the board, so I just decided the remote was better without it entirely. It may not have been the most elegant solution but it did work. I will consider the razor blade option in the future once I get some leads that are both thin and sharp enough to pierce the small traces.
As someone who has destroyed many PCBs, peeling off components can peel off the contacts traces. It can even pull contacts and traces from the underside of the board if the component is soldered through the board, like that LED probably is.
Nice. I just stuck a pin in the hole and scramble it. Then fill it with a drop of superglue.
Just get a cheap universal remote controller
Noice.
I would like to do this too
I added some pictures for reference in the gallery link and if you do it just take your time and be careful. Remotes are easier to replace than TVs, but it would still be inconvenient if it broke. Good luck!
just use kapton tape, flux and a heat gun.
To get ahead of the comments on why I didn’t use …
they just didn’t have kapton tape, it’s worth buying or you can get heat resistant tape at any local hardware store
Yes, but most people don’t even have one of those 3, let alone all 3.
This is the mindset I had when I posted my procedure. While I could have gotten all three and de-soldered it properly, it isn’t something most people can do. I didn’t want my post technique to feel unapproachable by people with small tools and steady hands. Thanks for mentioning this since I forgot to!
