Making an RF controlled light switch work with IR   [Gary] had
an RF triggered light switch kicking around, and wanted to find
a way to control his lights using a home theater remote. The
switch, which he bought from RadioShack years ago, came with a
simple remote that uses two buttons to toggle the lights on and
off. While you might think that switching from RF to IR control
would be a step backwards, [Gary] really just wanted to
consolidate remotes more than anything else.  He designed a
circuit board specifically for interacting with the remote half
of his RF controller. It sports a PIC16F628A micro controller,
which is tasked with processing IR commands from his home
theater remote and triggering the lights when requested.  The
code he developed for the project is relatively simple, but very
useful all the same. When his board is powered on, it stores the
first IR code it receives, then retains it as long as it stays
powered on. This lets [Gary] use any button on his remote to
turn the lights on and off,