My Fire TV is part of a set-up consisting of itself, TV (duh), A/V Receiver, and a couple of other HDMI devices that go into the receiver. TV, A/V receiver and others are controlled via Infrared remotes, while Fire TV remote is Bluetooth, if I understand correctly. I'd like to consolidate all the different controls into one universal remote and was wondering if someone had any ideas on how to go about that.
I've previously owned a Logitech Harmony remote that worked well, but I really don't want to shell out $250+ for those.
I've confirmed that RF-type mini keyboards with a USB receiver work. Now I need to find a similar one with IR and learning functionality. I've been looking at Amazon and it looks like something like this might work.
If anyone has recommendations, I'd be very grateful.
You can just use the Flirc IR to USB receiver. Search Amazon for FLIRC, its $30. Then use that with your current universal remote, if you have one.
I can't post link, too new, but here is the XBMC thread confirming its functionality.
ht tp://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=191109&pid=1674861
Spelvin said:
You can just use the Flirc IR to USB receiver. Search Amazon for FLIRC, its $30. Then use that with your current universal remote, if you have one.
I can't post link, too new, but here is the XBMC thread confirming its functionality.
ht tp://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=191109&pid=1674861
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Thanks for the Flirc suggestion, I'll look into it. Unfortunately I don't own a universal remote any more. My old Logitech Harmony 880 died a few years ago, and I've been making do with a Sony Google TV remote (comes with a couple of IR blasters.)
a lot of people seem to like the ortek/mce remote but it only has a mousepad-thingy and no kdb. then again spamazon has it for USD12.55, so that's almost worth getting just to have a spare remote.
the remote you linked, Chahk, seems quite useful (although who chose the button colors it is so ugly
the keyboard/mouse side looks like the standard Rii type - I have one of the most basic Rii for my ouya, except in BT rather than RF. the touchpad is kinda sketchy and takes some finesse, but it works well enough. the keyboard works well enough.
my favorite is still the PS3 / BD remote. but it only has 2 IR modes (tv, and amp/receiver) and it sounds like you have 3-4 IR devices?
(and the IR modes are only of the "pick a number out of the hat" variety, not custom programmable or learning or anything.)
it works great with ouya bluetooth, but there are at least 2 problems in regard to firetv:
- either amazon has to expand BT settings to generic HID, or we will need root to edit some config files.
- it is a pinless device. for android up to 4.1.x there is a consistent workaround. but not for android 4.2 and higher. (but again editing config file would probably be enough)
Is there an remote app from the market you can use to control the Fire TV?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
scottsdca said:
I can confirm that the Ortek-Windows-Infrared-Receiver-Ultimate I purchased from Amazon does indeed work with my Harmony One and the Fire TV.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
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Do the "Home" and "Menu" buttons work with the Ortek remote?
I have a similar MCE remote (LINK) which mostly works but not these two buttons.
kociubin said:
Do the "Home" and "Menu" buttons work with the Ortek remote?
I have a similar MCE remote which mostly works but not these two buttons.
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All the buttons show there work, including "Home" and "Back", however there is no button on the remote to bring up a context menu
google "fire tv tips" there is a key map that shows what buttons do what on a google tv forum
Remote/keyboard app
Is there a remote app from the market you can use to control the Fire TV?
scottsdca said:
Is there a remote app from the market you can use to control the Fire TV?
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Click to collapse
Not an official one. Able Remote works well for Google TV, but requires a companion app to be installed on the TV. The developer will have to come up with a Fire TV specific version.
Well, I went ahead and ordered this ugly monstrosity. It's coming from Singapore, so it'll be a few weeks before it get here.
Chahk said:
Well, I went ahead and ordered this ugly monstrosity. It's coming from Singapore, so it'll be a few weeks before it get here.
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It's here, and it does a fine job at controlling the Fire TV. unfortunately it does a piss-poor job of controlling pretty much anything else. Contrary to the description, it has no "IR learning" functionality, but a simple list of codes instead. The list is quite limited, and only supports half of my devices. I'm done with cheap Chinese knock-offs, and will be ordering a Logitech Harmony remote instead.
[Update]:
Harmony Ultimate is here, and it controls everything I have except Fire TV. Aaaaarrrghhh! I'm ready to pull my hair out over here.
Last chance. I'm ordering one of those cheap USB IR receivers that people over at AVS Forums are saying work well with Fire TV, and teaching my Harmony the basic buttons (left, right, up, down, select, back, home.) If that doesn't work - all of it is going back to their respective manufacturers until they learn how to play nice with each other.
UPDATE 2:
Victory! After hooking up the IR receiver from the MCE remote to Fire TV, and teaching Harmony the basic keys, I can now control everything in my setup with a single remote. Of course the voice input from the Fire TV remote is missing, and since Harmony Ultimate has no keyboard, I'm stuck doing text entry letter-by-letter via the clunky mid-90's interface. It'll do for now, until I figure out a way to either bring QWERTY to Harmony, or get a USB hub for Fire TV so that I can use my RF micro-keyboard.
Now I need to do some wire management to take care of the spaghetti wiring from all these devices.
UPDATE 3:
Got a simple unpowered 4-port USB hub, plugged in both the IR receiver and an RF receiver, so now I can also use a micro-keyboard for doing text input. The living room is now wife-approved!
Here's another "All-In-One" universal remote option that will work for both standard IR devices and BT devices:
Blu-Link Universal Remote
This remotes can:
1. Act like a normal IR remote (i.e. it has a slew four digit codes to program the remote to work with your IR components)
2. Act like a BT remote (has a built in BT transmitter in it to work with BT devices such as gaming consoles, media boxes (Roku/Fire TV/Apple TV)
3. Has a learning functionality so that any button on your remote can be learned by the Blu-Link remote
(The user guide for the remote can be found here)
The best part is that the remote is only $27.
My only issue now is that I lose the speech recognition ability of the Fire TV remote, but I have yet to find any universal remote setup that can do that.
smithmal
I ended up with this BT/IR kbd+touchpad +8 IR keys, and it's not bad so far ... aside from being a little flimsy and the IR is not super-strong and the battery is only 250mah.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=59103175&postcount=8
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M32PBXO/
but I still almost wish for having one of the singapore monstrosities, simply for how wonderfully unbelievably ugly it is.
smithmal said:
Here's another "All-In-One" universal remote option that will work for both standard IR devices and BT devices:
Blu-Link Universal Remote
This remotes can:
1. Act like a normal IR remote (i.e. it has a slew four digit codes to program the remote to work with your IR components)
2. Act like a BT remote (has a built in BT transmitter in it to work with BT devices such as gaming consoles, media boxes (Roku/Fire TV/Apple TV)
3. Has a learning functionality so that any button on your remote can be learned by the Blu-Link remote
(The user guide for the remote can be found here)
The best part is that the remote is only $27.
My only issue now is that I lose the speech recognition ability of the Fire TV remote, but I have yet to find any universal remote setup that can do that.
smithmal
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Click to collapse
That remote sounds interesting. Does it work well with Fire TV? Like all the basic fire tv buttons are available? And are you using bluetooth or IR with a usb receiver?
smithmal said:
Here's another "All-In-One" universal remote option that will work for both standard IR devices and BT devices:
Blu-Link Universal Remote
This remotes can:
1. Act like a normal IR remote (i.e. it has a slew four digit codes to program the remote to work with your IR components)
2. Act like a BT remote (has a built in BT transmitter in it to work with BT devices such as gaming consoles, media boxes (Roku/Fire TV/Apple TV)
3. Has a learning functionality so that any button on your remote can be learned by the Blu-Link remote
(The user guide for the remote can be found here)
The best part is that the remote is only $27.
My only issue now is that I lose the speech recognition ability of the Fire TV remote, but I have yet to find any universal remote setup that can do that.
smithmal
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Click to collapse
Did you actually manage to get the remote to show up? Every time I tried to pair it, nothing showed up. Also tried it on my nexus player without any luck...
Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk
I did not. My initial understanding of the remote's capability was based off of erroneous information posted by an Amazon reviewer in the Q&A section for the product. Once obtaining the product I found out that the BT commands for the remote are specific only to the PS3 (i.e. the remote has no ability to "learn" new BT commands). Also, as you mentioned, the FireTV does not recognize it in pairing mode. For this reason, the remote would not work as I had hoped and I updated the Q&A product section on Amazon and sent it back.
My solution was to purchase a FLIRC dongle, download the FLIRC software to my PC, manually force the FLIRC to update its firmware (which is important as the firmware that originally installed with the software would not allow me to properly program the "back", "home" and "menu" buttons; this is done by downloading the latest firmware (which I believe is now v3.5) by following the instructions posted here), program the dongle with my IR remote (I settled on using the standard universal remote that comes with my TV) and then plug in the FLIRC dongle into the USB port of the FireTV.
After that, I had a "All-In-One" universal remote solution that would allow me to operate both my TV and FireTV with one remote.
smithmal
Since the Fire TV stick has no usable USB port to speak of, we can't just plug in an IR dongle.
Some people have had success using HDMI-CEC and their TV remote control. However, my Olevia 232 TV doesn't seem to support the CEC protocol.
Has anyone had any luck using a PS3 remote? Has anyone tried using a Harmony PS3 adapter, or IR2BT bridge?
My thoughts were to build an Arduino device using BT shield setup to use the keyboard profile or Joystick profile; and couple that with an IR receiver.
I have successfully side loaded the settings.apk. I am able to pair a BT PC keyboard. I have seen reports that even some Samsung TV's don't support CEC protocol. So even if officially none of this works, I might be able to Pair one of the devices mentioned above with settings.apk.
Well, I had to side-load the settings.apk. In doing so, I could pair a bt keyboard and a bt media remote control by Satechi. Unfortunately, only PLAY/Pause and the home key do anything. But it's a star. The Forward and back buttons don't seem to work. However, I wonder, if they sent ff and rewind commands; if it would respond.
This gave me the idea to pair the Fire tv remote to my phone.
I was able to pair the Fire TV stick remote to my phone, and tested all of the key buttons .
Amazon Fire TV Remote
ButtonKeyCode
Up19
down20
left21
right22
back4
Home?
menu82
Rew89
Play85
FF90
I wonder if I rename a device to `Amazon Fire TV Remote` if it will accecpt paring in the normal Fire TV settings menu.
I have been using my Slingbox Pro HD with Slingplayer tablet apk sideloaded to the FTV. However to use it to change channels and select options I need to use a Keyboard/Mouse combo to move around and navigate.
The Native and New Slingplayer app built for FTV doesn't work with the PRO HD. It only works on Slingbox 350, 500, and M1. I was wondering if the new Slingplayer app was easier to navigate with the FTV remote? I am mainly using it to control a XBOX 360 with WIndows media Center to stream my cable card. Anyone know how hard it is to rewind/ff and access recordings and change channels with the FTV remote only?
Thanks.
The native Slingplayer app works well with the Fire TV remote. The one feature that's missing is the SlingPlayer guide. Instead, it access the box's guide function, which is useless due to the delay between clicks. I end up using my tablet or smartphone to get the TV listings and then punch in the channel number with the Fire TV remote. Another annoyance is the quality always resets to the lowest setting when the app starts. However, I tested the regular, tablet, and Fire TV apps and the Fire TV app produces better video quality at the highest settings.
Thanks for the info!
I have a few firetv sticks. Today I noticed something peculiar. One is located in my garage and I was using an IPTV app on the device. I picked up the tv remote to set the timer. I backed out and realized was backing out of a menu app on the firetv. I also have an RCA universal 6 device remote and it worked as well. I know I programmed the rca to control a roku. But I don’t recall doing anything for the firetv. I certainly never did anything to the Panasonic remote (it’s an older plasma tv). Anyone ever seen this? I have many of the universal remotes and it would be great to program more to work with other firetv sticks.
What you're seeing is called HDMI-CEC. It allows the TV to send basic navigation commands to the Fire TV over the HDMI connection. No programming is needed. You can verify this is what is happening by disabling HDMI-CEC in the Fire TV's display settings. See here: http://www.aftvnews.com/amazon-fire...able-hdmi-cec-in-new-5-2-4-0-software-update/
In order to not have to wade through a pile of remote controls, I've been successfully using a Harmony Hub with my AV system. I'm currently using a Sony STR-DN1080 receiver with my Sony XBR-65X950g. I've also got an Xbox and AppleTV attached to the receiver.
When the TV is not in use, we place it in Restricted Profile so that the ten-year old will do things like eat and sleep and not just stare at the television all night.
Unfortunately, with this month's update to Android Pie, the Harmony can no longer control the television while it's in Restricted Profile. We have to use the remote which came with the television to turn the TV on and sign-out of Restricted Profile. Once we've done that, the Harmony works fine.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
I actually have narrowed the problem down a bit more. The Harmony wants to use IP controls for the TV. However when the Restricted Profile is enabled the TV stops listening to IP. I've verified that it's only discoverable to the Harmony Hub when RP is not enabled.