Normal vs IR LED

[vazquezjm]

This might sound stupid, but: is it possible to control an IR device with a normal / regular 5mm LED?

While reading this I noticed that:

"You can temporarily replace the IR LED with a normal LED if you don't have a digital camera when debugging."

which I did, and was also able to received the codes on the receiver side of my project (similar to this). Now I'm wondering if using an IR LED is required to operate an IR controlled device.

TIA

[crankyoldgit]

Wow. That must be a poor/interesting IR demodulator.

[vazquezjm]

Well. Replaced the normal LED with the IR LED. Everything working as expected.