Remote control advice

1st Official Post

    Hi, I'm about to build myself an HTCP and it will be using Librelec. I'm completely confident about the hardware except for one thing, and that's which remote control to pick. I believe I am correct when I say that Libreelc is based around Linux and that it includes support for remotes as does Linux itself these days and that many remotes require little to no setup.

    Can someone recommend one? I just want something simple that works out of the box, without my having to fiddle around with keymapping and stuff. It can be IR or BT, so long as it works without my having to faff around with settings (I realise you have to enable BT and do the pairing) - nothing fancy, so long as things like the home and power buttons work as they should.

    There are lots of them around, like MXQ M8 clones and the like...I do not wish to use a Harmony, too expensive.

    I am in the Uk by the way, so it would be helpful to avoid links to items in say the USA although of course many do ship to Europe.

    What I don;t want to happen is to do the "hard bit" which is building the box and getting everything set up, only to get to what should be the "easy bit", that is using it turn out to be the frustrating and difficult task :)

    Thankyou.

    I'd recommend using an MCE remote with an MCE USB IR receiver, these are very well supported in Linux and will work out of the box in LibreELEC.

    Make sure you get a "real" MCE remote (using the MCE IR protocol), eg a HP branded one like this (random ebay pick when searching for "HP MCE"): USB MCE RC6 Wireless Receiver HP TSGH-IR07 Windows Media Center remote NUC KODI | eBay - "MCE" has become a somewhat generic term nowadays and lots of IR and even RF remotes not using the RC6 MCE IR protocol are advertised with that term.

    If your HTPC / Kodi box has an IR receiver built in you won't even need the USB IR receiver, MCE remotes are supported in LibreELEC with the built-in IR receivers, too.

    RF remotes and airmice / wireless keyboards, especially the cheap ones from asia, are a hit-and-miss (some work very good, some very badly), so make sure you get the exact same model someone else has tested before - buying a random RF remote / airmouse and hoping it will work is like playing lottery :)

    so long,

    Hias

    FWIW

    I use a Antec Fusion 430 case, it has a built in ir receiver that supports mce protocol (rc6)

    I use it with a remote controller like the one HiassofT mentioned

    Pay attention to the display, the early ones don't support rc6 protocol (the ones with green vfd display)

    The later ones with the blue display are fine, although the display itself is pretty useless in my opinion

    This works in LE but you have to install imon mce addon first, it is in the standard LE addon repo.

    The eject button does not work, but can be added with a custom keymap. Instructions are in this wiki: Infrared Remotes [LibreELEC.wiki][]=remote

    Here are my remote files but the key codes could be different imon_mce.zip

    Edited 3 times, last by duck7000 (April 29, 2019 at 9:16 AM).