Controlling the home environment can be quite the challenge for people with disabilities.

The taken for granted activities such as dealing with small appliance settings or hacking around with home entertainment systems can become a real nightmare when they are out of reach or have controls that are dis-unfriendly.

I recently spotted the ThinkFlood Redeye Mini, a small hardware plugin to an iPhone, or iPod Touch which creates the ability to control many devices that have an infrared sensor. You know, televisions and entertainment systems and certain small appliances.

While not developed specifically as assistive technology, the Redeye Mini and its big sibling Redeye may just be the right number for some people with disabilities who want to have some control over their home or work environments.

Redeye Mini is a small device that plugs into the earphone jack of an iPhone or iPod Touch. A free app is loaded onto your device and the unit is ready for operation. The app acts as an activity-based control on your iPhone or iPod touch to interact with your gear from up to 30 feet away.

For those wanting more beef, the Redeye Mini has a big brother called Redeye. The Redeye is placed in a room of your choosing and communicates with your iPhone or iPod Touch via wi-fi. After you install the RedEye app (a free download from iTunes) on your iPhone or iPod touch, you can communicate with the RedEye device over Wi-Fi. The RedEye device then sends out infrared signals to control your equipment. Because the RedEye device is in the same room as your equipment, you don’t have to be. Instead, you can control your living room stereo from the kitchen, or turn off the TV upstairs.

These devices may be a great way to get things under control, get rid of the basket of remotes laying around, and maybe even add a bit of “assistive” to some of the technology around the home and workplace.

Be cool,
Ziggi