[voxeltek]

Hey!

I'm an avid music enjoyer with a passion for electronics. I am in love with my old iPod classic, and I think Tangara is a really cool project!

Recently, though, I was designing a small device for my iPod, and I started thinking if it might be possible to implement the same thing with Tangara.



Basically, there was a product for the original iPod, called the "Radio Remote". (by the way, I'm more talking about the later model with the 30-pin connector) It was a small device that would plug into the iPod, and then on the other end of the cable was a small clip, much like an iPod shuffle. The clip had a bunch of buttons on it for controlling music playback, like skipping or rewinding songs, playing or pausing the track, and increasing or decreasing the volume.

I still use my iPod daily, yet a lot of the time it's in my pocket and annoying to pull out if I want to, say, change the volume or skip tracks. I used to have an Apple remote, but I lost it a bit ago, and when I started searching for a new one, I found that they were both rare and expensive.

After looking into it some, it seems that the remote communicates with the iPod over a simple serial interface, and so for the past few days, I've been working on designing an open-source replacement.



(some 3D designs for the device case, as well as some 3D models of the PCB)


I haven't yet ordered the parts or created a functional prototype yet, but I was talking with a friend, and I thought:

What if this device, or a redesign of it, could also be made to work with the Tangara?


At this point, my design is intended to interface over serial, but it wouldn't be hard at all to modify it to communicate over something like I2C or SPI. However, one concern I have is how to actually connect it to the Tangara. As far as I can tell, the only external interfaces are the USB-C port and the headphone jack. 

As such, I was wondering if it might be possible to expose a simple interface of some sort on some USB-C pins? I'm not very knowledgeable on USB-C, but I have heard that it is possible to send messages on the CC lines, and that the iPhone for example can have the SBU pins configured for serial communication.


I'm really sorry if this post is hard to follow, I'm not very good with words, especially in longer posts like this. But to summarise, I'm developing a wired external playback control remote for the iPod, and I'm wondering if it's possible to make it work with Tangara.

Thanks to whoever reads this post!