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Comment by krackers

16 hours ago

>that is already used in our industry-changing Roku remote controls.

Why does a remote control require a RTOS?

Roku remotes are sophisticated devices. There are many models, so features vary, but among the possible features are 3.5mm audio output, Bluetooth audio, voice command input, Wi-Fi, infrared, battery charger and other things. Clearly a substantial MCU is present and thus, an RTOS.

  • Pretty sure they don't have gyroscopes and accelerometers anymore, but they did early on. It was basically a Wii Mote and I played a ton of Angry Birds on my TV.

You can do an IR remote without a RTOS, but as soon as you do BLE you realistically need a RTOS. You have timers for keep-alives, connection states, competing interrupts, CPU-"intensive" tasks that can be preempted (for crypto)