How to deal with those annoying TVs blaring Fox News all day

Flipper Zero ftw
- Really expensive for the use case.
  I considered it recently but then the flipper zero community was like "Spend $15 bucks for a universal remote man."
  
  haha im in the middle of switching careers into IT/CS and I figured it would be a good investment for the future or at least to tinker with. I've just had to focus on other things for certs I need, so no time to really dive into it.
- I really need to get one.
  
  I'd wait a bit. The flipper one is announced.
  
  And I need to learn to use mine better. All I got is a couple of neat magic tricks like turning off TVs or scanning people's cats lol
  Just been too busy learning other things lately I guess

I was at a hospital waiting room one night for an ex’s mother’s injury. I’m not family so I had to wait in the waiting room, which had Fox News blaring. They wouldn’t change it. I couldn’t change it. But I could unplug all the TVs.
Nurse ratchet did not like that one bit.
- I sometimes (jokingly) wonder if Hospitals show Fox News to try to get repeat business, and I don't mean repeat business due to people who enjoy Fox coming back, I mean due to health complications caused by the stress of watching it.
  
  Watching fox news does not cause you stress. It causes stress for all the people around you.
  My grandpa got a dose of fox news for a while, and it took a long conversation to convince him that there is not a county in Michigan that is more that 50% Somali immigrants.

In fact you can use your smartphone to change the channel on nearly any TV. In the comments on that post some people talk about how to do it. Basically you need a smartphone with either builtin IR or use a USB
I don't think have seen phone with built in IR in a decade.
- Oppo is still including them
- I saw a video on a new budget phone recently that had IR. I think only the Chinese brands like Xiaomi, Vivo, and OnePlus are the ones carrying the torch at this point... But not even on all phones they release.
  I carried around my old HTC One M7 in my laptop bag for YEARS after I had upgraded explicitly for the IR blaster. It's probably in there still right now in fact.
  
  Yeah, since it was mostly used for data connections between phones. It was replaced once bluetooth got a little bit better.
- The last one with IR I had was a Siemens mobile. Not even a smart phone. That was about 25ish years ago.
- https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Android+usbc+ir+blaster
  Me either, but the phone will commonly have a USV-C port

In the early 2010s some flagship Android phones came with IR blasters built-in. You could turn off any TV anywhere, simply by pulling out your phone.
I miss the days when smartphones were fun.
- There’s no reason we can’t make IR stuff a phone accessory. Let’s make a flipper zero phone accessory. Control it with a webUI so that Apple and Google can’t block companion apps by claiming “oh noes, teh Hakurz”
- You can still get Androids with them. My phone has one. Only a year or two old.
  
  I would but I made the mistake of giving a foldable a try (got myself a used Samsung Fold 4 for $400). I got too used to having a tablet in my pocket and now I can't go back.
  Problem is that foldables are still niche and a fold with an IR blaster is even more niche. Doubt that any exist but I'd love to be proven wrong.
  
  Nice, which one is it?
- I have a 2024 OnePlus 12 that had an IR blaster, just FYI
- I pissed off so many people with this. 14 year old me had a lot of fun.
- my xiaomi has one
- My Jelly Star (tiny cellphone) had an ir blaster. I had a lot of fun with it until the screen on it stopped working. It still is a decent phone, and I would consider getting another except the warranty process was kinda crap.
- It was really handy.
  I had power, source selection, and volume controls for my TV as a widget on my homescreen.

my universal remote ✂️

Instead of the TV-B-Gone, there should be a TV-1-Channel-Up device that just changes the channel. If the TV in the doctor's office turns off, it will get noticed by the reception desk and probably be turned back on in a few minutes. If the TV is on a different channel, the desk is much less likely to notice any time soon (at least not before you've been called back into the exam room).
- TVs at my local doctors office took the prescription commercials to a new level and now just run an ad feed all day.

The middle school that I went to had a ~14" crt tv hanging from a sturdy ceiling mount in every classroom.
Displayed things like school bulletins and daily morning announcements, there was a couple educational channels, and a vcr input. Every now and again there'd be some sort of presentation instead of hauling everyone into the gym for a school assembly.
Anyway; it didn't take me very long to figure out the universal remote that came with the satellite receiver at home could be programmed to the school TVs. I'd mess with the one in class, or skip classes and mess with the ones in my friends classrooms through the windows; cranking up the volume and blasting Bill Nye or the announcement channels awful elevator music. Weekends, I'd do a lap of the school turning on all the TVs I could reach from outside and maxing the volume for whoever opens on Monday, or just turning them off again so it blares at whoever turns it on next.
- You fucking menace. I love the chaotic energy lol. You pull any more stunts like that one?
  
  Stick a piece of tape on the bottom of laser mice. It stops them from being able to detect motion.
  Screenshot your buddies desktop, then save that image to the desktop. Set it as the desktop background. Now right click, select "view" i think, and click "show desktop icons". In theory, nothing should noticably change. But now you can no longer actually click on the icons on the desktop. To take it further, open task manager. Find "explorer.exe" and kill it. Now, you cant even right click to reshow desktop icons.
  Easy fix to that is to reboot the computer, but you can also just reopen task manager, start a new process "explorer.exe", and then reshow desktop icons.
  You can find a website that has fake versions of windows update screens. Load one of those, hit f11 to fullscreen your page, and enjoy as your friend waits for three hours at a bar that has only gone up 2%.
  Open task scheduler. Add a new task. Set it to run every day at like 2 pm. Have it set volume to 3/4, then open firefox with the extra command "https://www.youtube.com/watch/dQw...." and you will have a great time.
  For a more malicious prank, get a syringe. Fill it with raw egg. Inject this into the seats of some assholes car. Within two days, their car is not able to be sat in without the windows down, and even then it is horrible. They cannot figure out where the smell is coming from, and even if they do, they have to replace the seat. Optionally you can just throw a dead fish into their gutter, they wont find it for a couple days at least, and it will permanantly make their entire yard smell.
  
  Pull the tab off of a pop can. Turn off the switch on the power bar that the teachers computer is plugged into. Unplug the computer, slip the pop can tab over the live+neutral prongs, plug it back into the still off power bar and wait.
  The teacher goes to use their computer, finds it's not turning on and looks at the power bar.
  Switch flips, 'BANG', scream, lights go out (breaker popped).

...isn't there a 3.5mm jack silencer you can buy? Searching now and I can't find it, but I could have sworn when I was in highschool (y'know, like 25 thousand years ago) you could order a bag of like 50 of them for like $10.
It was just a 3.5mm audio plug with matte black plastic cap on the end, so you'd plug it into a TV's headphone jack and some models of TVs would be permanently silenced until someone unplugged the cap, because it was sending its audio to the 'speakers' that were just plugged in. And once plugged in, it just looked like a screw cover cap - nothing protruding. But also didn't damage anything, so you couldn't get in any real trouble for doing it.
...am I just imagining shit? If anyone knows what I'm talking about and figure out the magic search terms to actually pull it up, please drop a link to a product that can be ordered.
Edit - for visibility, I posted this comment as its own thread over on Ask.
- So you could make your own by buying 3.5mm jacks and wiring a 2-4 ohm resistor (whatever standard headphone resistance is) in it to simulate the headphone, then just plug it in. Kindof a bother I guess to make, carry, and then obviously hunt around the back of a tv to install one, but it certainly could be done.
- That's so evil I love it

Have you tried a TV-B-Gone?

There is this place I unfortunately have to go to a lot that always has Fox News on really loud and a bunch of white dude boomers watching it. April was glorious. They had the weather channel on lmao but it’s back now
- If you work someplace with public-facing tv's, the weather channel is a fucking godsend. If it's on a news station, entitled boomers will want it on their news station. If it's on weather, well, it's just the weather.
  
  Oh you mean the woke channel that keeps insisting that this year is hotter than it was when I was growing up‽ Global warming is a socialist conspiracy and the weather channel is in on it! /s
- Wait, what happened in April and has changed again since?
  
  Stock market looked like complete shit and no amount of spin control could hide it, to the point where one day Fox literally removed their stock ticker for the first time in decades
- That's really annoying. Do you think they'd notice you using your phone to change the station and possible remove Fox from the channel list? Is there windows in the building with the TVs? There are some high power IR blasters that might let you change it from outside.
  
  It would be funny to block the channel ngl but I don't know what they're using to get fox specifically. A lot of cable news is now part of a digital tv package, so TV access isn't enough. I'd need to get to their verizon/AT&T/etc. box which usually operates independently through the HDMI.

This is the second best thing I do with my Flipper Zero after reading pet RFID chips
- I read about the Flipper Zero and it seems really awesome! I even saw some high power LEDs for it that could in theory change the channel from a long distance.
- Yep I keep it in my pocket with just the IR sensor sticking out and use the app on your phone to control it and it keeps people from ever suspecting me as the one who just turned off that annoying noise.

Samsung Android phones use to include an IR blaster. I use to install a universal remote app on my phone and change the channels anywhere Fox News was on and nobody could tell because nobody suspected the smart phone.

Me too, I call it a flipper 0. I can also skip songs on the jukebox at the bar, fear me.

I use the kit-built one of these: https://www.tvbgone.com/shop/ -- They gave a bunch of them away at the end of a makefaire I was a part of years ago.
- These are amazing. I regularly use mine to shut off the “CP24” channel (news +ads +weather +ads +traffic +more ads, in the Toronto area) anywhere I go. I think nobody actually likes that shit but we all tolerate it because we think other people do.
- The TV-B-Gone is really cool especially because it's so small but of course it just shuts off the TV. I've seen a few keychain sized universal remotes that have buttons.
  I just wrote a comment in reply to someone suggesting unplugging the TV: https://lemm.ee/post/65246982/20771041
  Basically it's nice that you get peace and quiet but turning it off is more noticeable.
  
  the tv-b-gone is more universal than a universal remote….
  my favorite trick is going to one of those bars with 30 tv sets everywhere… although that’s just kind of neutral-evil

How do you know if your phone has built in IR?
- GSMarena has specs for most smartphones including infrared (listed under connectivity).
  Here's a link to a search showing all phones in their database with IR: https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?chkInfrared=selected note I haven't checked accuracy or completeness, it might be best to check the specs for your phone or search if your phone supports it.
  If you got an old phone or an old PDA it might have IR if your current one doesn't.
- Check the specs or look for the blaster with another phone
  edit: forgot that it's only visible when on, so just check the specs/apps

This joke is super old...
I rember when airports, hospitals, government building all played Faux.
I haven't seen it out in the wild for like a decade at least tho, what places still actually leave it on in 2025?
- Every time I stay at a suburban/rural American hotel they have Fox on in the dining area at breakfast. Last time was ~6 months ago in central California.
  
  Crazy, didn't think it was still happening
- SC here, last time at the work boots store 2 weeks ago

Easier to just unplug the TV.
- There are pros and cons to that.
  Advantage is of course you get peace and quiet like that. No TV might feel more relaxing.
  Downside is someone might plug the TV in again which will turn it back on to Fox. Changing the channel means you can show unbiased news and maybe if for example you change the station to PBS, people will get educated. People might leave it on the channel you changed it to due to apathy. A TV that's off is more noticeable.
  I'd recommend if it's possible especially if you're the only one in the room at the time consider going into the channel editor and removing Fox News and other propaganda stations from the channel list.
- With scissors.