Remote Control

  • Can anyone recommend a remote control for the Raspberry Pi 4.

    Would like a remote that has a qwerty keyboard (preferably backlit) but other than that no other requirements.

  • Use your mobile phone. Best remote control of all.

    What app would you recommend?


    Never found the need for a keyboard in LE.

    I've found it useful for tweaking settings & occasional file management, I usually just plug in a Bluetooth keyboard but as I'm getting a new remote thought I'd try out an all-in-one device.

    Edited once, last by ian_j: Merged a post created by ian_j into this post. (July 21, 2023 at 10:58 PM).

  • It depends on how much TV functionality you need from the remote. If its the full standard TV remote functionality then I've been looking on and off for four years.

    You can get mini wifi keyboards that have some TV remote capability eg iPazzPort or Rii. There are also the air mouse devices some of which may do what you want. I bought my iPazzPort from Amazon it has 8 keys for IR TV control so I can power the TV on/off, manage volume & chanel (simple up/down) and that's about it.

  • Hi,

    For any version of RPi, the simplest way for IR remote is using an 3 pin IR receiver component with 3 short wire. You can find a lot of documentation about it.

    The default IR remote codes set in LE is the "MCE" codes. I'm using my 3 RPi's with HP MCE remotes.

    But can be used almost any IR remotes, with more or less works in settings.

    About keyboard, I'm using only for first setup, mostly a simple USB keyboard. After that, in the seldom case of the text typing, I realy don't know what could be more anoying and complicated, a remote full with miniature buttons or the LE's virtual keyboard... ;)

  • I realy don't know what could be more anoying and complicated, a remote full with miniature buttons or the LE's virtual keyboard

    If we had a vote mine would go to the virtual keyboard - especially when I'm trying to set a date in the TV search facility ^^

  • Can anyone recommend a remote control for the Raspberry Pi 4.

    Would like a remote that has a qwerty keyboard (preferably backlit) but other than that no other requirements.

    Hi ian,

    i am using the Rii x8 since a long time on 2 PI`s.

    Comes with USB Dongle and with a changeable Accu

    Recharging can be done with a Micro-USB cable and a full battery lasts for many weeks

    I really like it !

    You can buy it e.G. on Amazon and it is pretty cheap.
    You can also get it with different Keyboard layouts:

  • I'm using Logitech Harmony 665 for TV, AVR and HTPC, which runs Libreelec 10.0.4 (Generic.x86_64).

    The IR-receiver is Atric Wakeup USB eco. Honestly I had some issues to get it running. At the end modified lircd.conf and lirc_options.conf did the trick. I mostly like the Atric receiver, because it allows to switch the HTPC on and off via the Harmony 665.

    However, for reasons I couldn't sort out so far, the above-mentioned setup stopped working as of Libreelec 11.0.1.

  • Hi ian,

    i am using the Rii x8 since a long time on 2 PI`s.

    Comes with USB Dongle and with a changeable Accu

    Recharging can be done with a Micro-USB cable and a full battery lasts for many weeks

    I really like it !

    You can buy it e.G. on Amazon and it is pretty cheap.
    You can also get it with different Keyboard layouts:

    I purchased one of these and my wife is very happy with it apart from the scroll wheel which is not working in kodi on the Pi.

    Is there anywhere in the OS that I need to enable it?