I'm gonna buy a new remote. Any suggestions what would be the best buy for LinuxMCE?
I am very happy with the gyro remote and wireless keyboard. I have not had any issues with them so far. I know the same company also makes a MCE version that is shaped like a regular remote control but also works like an air mouse. I might pick one of those up too. Cheers.
Surprisingly the Microsoft Media Center remote is pretty decent. I find my self preferring it to my Harmony. If only it could control my receiver. It just feels good in my hand.
@cckrobinson, if you get the usbuirt and the external ir emitter it should be able to control your receiver. I got usbuirt and it works really well.
Budget?
Do you need discrete IR commands?
Macros?
Able to have "activities"?
Control several components?
If you have good suggestions for those use-cases. List away! Perhaps there are other people interested. :)
For me: Budget depends on what I get for it in return. I'm willing to pay more if it's good value. :) The Microsoft remote seems nice so I'm leaning towards that one right now. My intention is to use it just for LinuxMCE. But if there's one that can control my other devices without much usability sacrifice then that would be cool too.
this remote looks awesome:
http://www.fiire.com/fiire-chief.php
but for $149.00 it should be...
http://www.gyration.com/en-US/ProductDetail.html?modelnum=GC1005M&accshow=3
Would this be compatable with LinuxMCE + Ubuntu 6.10? Im not a Linux noob, just dont want to waste money, i usually run Gentoo, what is the install procedure for the reciever etc? Thanks
Eddy
@eddy_alfatec
this gyro mouse works very nice in linuxmce. it is recognized and installed automatically.
Quote from: Todd on June 04, 2007, 07:16:07 PM
this remote looks awesome:
http://www.fiire.com/fiire-chief.php
but for $149.00 it should be...
This looks exactly like my Gyration MCE Remote, just a different color and a few very minute label differences. Does the FiireChief run on the Gyration dongle? If so, I'd be willing to return my Gyration MCE Universal remote and get one.
My guess is that this is just a rebadged Gyration MCE remote. Dale3h, what would be the point of exchanging the Gyration remote for this one?
The component buttons on this Gyration remote are hard to select. I have to either use a key, or press the button a few times REALLY HARD until it selects the proper component.
I'm hoping it's just a defective remote, though. Other than that, I like the "x" instead of the "i" button next to the <- back button. Looks cooler!
Fiire sent me a couple pre-production prototypes which I've been using. I believe it uses the same plastic molds as the Windows remote, but i know the firmware and what's inside is just for LinuxMCE. Everytime I reported problems they had to swap out the boards and chips inside the remote. I'm doing a new demo video and will use it in their so you can see how it works; it doesn't work at all like the Windows remote.
i always imagined that a wireless gamepad would be really awesome. microsoft just released a wireless receiver for their xbox 360 controllers that allow them to be used with a PC wirelessly. so, if u already have an xbox 360 with a wireless remote, all you have to do is pick up this USB wireless dongle for 20 bucks MRSP. if u dont have a 360 controller, either buy the controller and wireless receiver seperately, or pick them both up together for 60 bucks MRSP.
Quote from: Ohnonomiss on August 01, 2007, 08:19:04 PM
i always imagined that a wireless gamepad would be really awesome. microsoft just released a wireless receiver for their xbox 360 controllers that allow them to be used with a PC wirelessly. so, if u already have an xbox 360 with a wireless remote, all you have to do is pick up this USB wireless dongle for 20 bucks MRSP. if u dont have a 360 controller, either buy the controller and wireless receiver seperately, or pick them both up together for 60 bucks MRSP.
Well, I got the wiimote to work with LMCE, but nobody seems interested to help out with the LMCE integration, so good luck with that.
Personally for ease, I like the Mickeysoft Winblows MCE Remote. The IR Blaster is supported, not sure bout the blaster part. That reminds me, has anyone gotten the blaster to work with LinuxMCE, would be nice to not have to add another device. I have drivers to make it work, just never have used them. Anyways, it is a nice little remote for what it is. I have a Wii, so thinking of trying the Wiimote thing just to see what it is like.
I would love to see the wiimote working "properly" in linuxmce. I am going to start using either MythTV or LinuxMCE soon enough "for real", and the wiimote is really my preferred pointing device.
Ive got the wiimote drivers running on ubuntu w/ media center, i just need to write some scripts to emulate the mouse.
project for the next few days.
If you do get the wiimote working in LMCE as a mouse (bonus with the media, climate, and menu buttons!!). I'd be grateful if you would post a howto here!!
A lot of people are keen on the wiimote idea
see: http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=1246.0
Quote@eddy_alfatec
this gyro mouse works very nice in linuxmce. it is recognized and installed automatically.
In other Posts I read, that they are not working very good, so I'm a bit confused.
Does anyone have this remote working ??? Does every feature work, that works for the FiireChief exept from "FollowMe"(I won't need it, because I will only have one htpc)
???
I would like to buy it, because the FiireChief is very expensive.
The Gyro Mouse will allow you to control the LMCE Orbiter if properly configured. But it is a bit clunky and controlling MythTV without a number of buttons is impossible.
The basic preference of remote controls is:
| FiireChief | Has follow me + buttons are programmed sanely out of the box |
| Gyration Remote | Needs to be configured but works well with the Orbiter and has enough functional buttons to control MythTV. 10 of the buttons don't work with X so you are button constrained. |
| LIRC remotes | These generally require some configuration and they do not give you the sexy gyro control of the orbiter, but I have found the grey remote that comes with a PVR-250 to have just the right number of buttons and a good hand feel. Obviously with IR you have a very large selection of mice. Some people even use the TiVo remote from their retired TiVo boxes |
| Cell Phone/PDA | As noted by others in the thread you can actually use web control and even Orbiter Cell Phone applications to control LMCE, this can be a bit clunky and I would only recommend it as a secondary means of control, like when you can't find the remote or want to schedule a recording when you hear about some new TV program on the radio while on the train to work. |
| Keyboard/Mouse | The Gyration mouse would fall into this category, it gives you convenient control of the Orbiter, while the keyboard allows you to use all the functionality in the various applications. This is a little more immediate than PDA control, and practically everyone has these around, but I only use these as a last resort since the keyboard is to big to be lugging around and a mouse can be difficult to use at a distance (even the Gyration mouse feels too heavy for me to use comfortably, but of course this is a subjective opinion). |
Some people really love their infrared remotes and would put LIRC above the Gyration Remote. I don't have a FiireChief, yet, but from what I've read from people who have one it is very nice, which I believe since I have a Gyration Remote and it really helps with the UI2 Orbiter control. If you were not installing LinuxMCE and only using MythTV, any good infrared remote could be made to work really well with LIRC, but the MythTV devs are working on gesture control for MythTV so I expect that the FiireChief or Gyration Remote would become desirable even for MythTV alone sometime after the 0.21 release.
I also use a Nokia 770, a Tatung WebPad, a Cisco 7970, and my laptop as remotes.. all running the Orbiter software. Don't discount those.
-Thom
According to the gyration Remote (this windows mce thing): You say, that 10 buttons dont work in X, do they work in LMCE? As l understood, they do not work in Mythtv, but in LMCE? l'm just asking, because l reaIly don't want to pay 150$ for a REMOTE!!!
Those 10 buttons on the Gyration Remote don't work in X so they don't work in LinuxMCE. This may change in the future, but this is the current status.
But if you want to save money just use any old remote you have lying around with LIRC. All the Orbiter stuff will be accessible via the arrow keys, you just have to map a key on the remote to F7 to pull up the Orbiter menu, and F6 & F8 if you want some of the optional Orbiter functionality.