Hey guys,
As most of you might already know ( and I have been teasing you a bit about this 
), for over a year I have been actively developing a smart & feature-rich remote for the DIY community. Design is compact and dimensions come at around ~67x29.5mm / 2.63x1.16 in
My main goal with this project is to offer a reliable, solid, and community-driven remote that brings innovation to DIY builders. I’m proud of being part of this awesome community and would be happy to incorporate any feedback/suggestions/feature requests to the best of my abilities.
I will try to summarize as best as I can what this project is about, therefore many detailed software features won’t be all listed here,
With that being said, my main objective was to focus on reliability, efficiency, and versatility.
Reliability:
- Hall effect throttle sensor, wide control range ~ ±45°, immune to common potentiometer wear, ultra-accurate linear response.
- Reliable, Encrypted, and long-range Peer to Peer proprietary protocol powered by ESPNOW, providing a modern, high throughput RF communication (2.4Ghz).
- Interference-Resilient Custom-developed FHSS (Frequency-hopping spread spectrum) transmission.
- Enclosure will be made out of PA12 MJF in Black color, offering far better quality and strength. Current photos show prototyped FDM prints.
- Safety throttle release threshold, when the connection is lost
- Programmable extra button, can be set as throttle lock/unlock, either as momentary/hold or toggle, logical switch to control lights, horns…, activate reverse or cruise control (experimental for now).
- CAN-BUS protocol support, providing instantaneous and reliable throttle response to multi Vescs setups with zero forwarding delays.
- Built-in high-performance IMU (gyro, accelerometer, temp sensor).
- Free-Fall safety detection.(Experimental)
- Haptic feedback with faults alerts, battery, and signal monitoring
- Piezo buzzer for notifications with faults alerts, battery, and signal monitoring
- Magnetic charging port – Protection against accidental cable snapping
- Powered by FreeRTOS (C/C++) with proper multi-core tasks handling, event queues, semaphores, etc.
Efficiency:
Efficient power management is a key aspect that I will keep working on and improving after each software update.
Great performance often comes at a cost of increased power needs, however, I implemented many power-saving features to help achieve a respectable battery runtime.
- Built-in IMU is used for automatic tilt detection, dimming, and turning off the display when not being viewed, this helps reduce a considerable amount of wasted energy.
- Idle detection - detecting if the remote has been idle for a while and automatically shutdown.
- Soft power latching - allows for software-controlled shutdowns
- Built-in battery charger w/ thermal regulation
- 8+ hours continuous runtime – w/ display at full brightness (As of current BETA status)
Versatility:
iRemote is designed to be easily updatable, with periodic features addition, bug fixes, and overall software improvements.
It works with existing iLoggers acting as central control unit transceivers. They are the main units that take care of communicating with the Vesc through CAN or UART, with the added bonus of full built-in logging capabilities already in place. All of this is done with a lot more resources still available for future projects.
- Firmware updates are done seamlessly through OTA
- Versatile design and seamless integration with iLogger.
- One transceiver is enough to control many Vescs simultaneously on CAN-BUS
- Ability to save pairing information of multiple transceivers to easily use one remote on several boards.
- Extra logical channels for light controls or whatever you need to toggle from the remote.
- Possible future BMS support
BETA Testing:
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Now that I got the remote development at a mature state with all the fundamental functions in place, it’s time to open it up to the community for field testing.
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There will only be a handful of these built and available for beta testers to take on the wild, of which several are already reserved.
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Beta units will be built and hand assembled during the course of 2-4 weeks and shipped in the order they were received.
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Only a limited number of the remotes will be handed over during the initial community testing phase for a good reason. The rest will be periodically rolled out afterwards, ensuring they get the most stable and critically tested units.
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Although I have extensively invested countless testing hours on the project, it is crucial to know that this is still a wip that will be polished over the course of each software update.
As always, if you have any questions please feel free to let me know.
