Multiple TV control via PC Software. - Android TV General

Greetings to everyone!
I was wondering about something and i was thinking here is the right place to ask.
In our company we have multiple Android TVs ( SONY Bravia ).
Is there any app on PC that allows control of multiple TVs connected in LAN?
As far as i know, functions are available even if TV is turned off. ( at least to power it on ).
I am thinking of basic functions like, power ON/OFF. Volume adjustment.

Related

Infrared not working on XDA2 for TV remote controller

I've installed TV remote controller 5.5 from www.pdawin.com but cannot get any of the built in settings ie. SONY TV to controll my equipment. I cannot get the XDA2 to respond to the softwares learn function either. Can anyone please help?
I had this exact same issue. I gave up after 20 minutes. If anyone has any tips on using as a remote, I would also be very interested to know.
well i cant say for xda2 but i had it running on xda1 and the Infrared transmitter is WEAK! the tv would only react if the xda1 were as close as 30cm from the reciever of the tv
so unless the Infrared t ransceiver is much more powerfull then the one in xda1 then even if you find a remote program it's next to useless with such a short range
unless you build something like this
http://www.pdawin.com/irtranceiver.html
I had TV remote working on my previous Dell Axim X5. The IR transmitter was weak too, think it had to be within a metre or so from memory.
I've tried the XDA2 only inches away from the IR sensor on the TV and it still doesn't work, either it is really low powered? or there is a fault somewhere?
This is probably a hardware limitation.
It's possible that the used infrared led's aren't emitting in the standard consumer electronics spectrum.
If this is the case, the XDA II can't be used for remote control applications, unless you replace the IR transmitter (which means opening the case and voiding warranty).
It wont work due to the fact that the Xda II does not have a consumer standard IrDA module on it. A severe limitation of the Xda II as well I feel. A bit of a step backward from the Xda I too.
Grrr. I didnt want it anyway.
its not a hardware problem.... its a software problem...
RichMercer said:
It wont work due to the fact that the Xda II does not have a consumer standard IrDA module on it. A severe limitation of the Xda II as well I feel. A bit of a step backward from the Xda I too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, XDA2 can not be used for remote control applications!
I wonder why anybody would want to turn this beautiful cutting edge piece of technology into a remote control when a very comprehensive learning remote can be had for about £5.
cruisin-thru said:
I wonder why anybody would want to turn this beautiful cutting edge piece of technology into a remote control when a very comprehensive learning remote can be had for about £5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've often asked myself the same question I do see people with PDA's creating the odd havoc in TV shops n department stores switching the channels etc.
Really have not wanted to control my TV, aircon or anything else with my XDA II .
I wonder why anybody would want to turn this beautiful cutting edge piece of technology into a remote control when a very comprehensive learning remote can be had for about £5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well i suppose many people say the same thing with a search replace of remote to phone when they see how much more we pay to get a pda and cellphone in one
Even fully compliant IrDA components are only rated for a transmit distance of 1 meter. Consumer remote controls are much brighter.
Yes and since the cheapest usable tv remote controller with a more powerfull beam can be bought for around 5 dollar... why didn´t they put these ir leds in the mda xda ii?? max difference 1 dollar in large quantities?
With all these remotes laying around on the table (about 8 of them) tv remote on the pocketpc would be very usefull. Learning mode, program what you need or get them from the database on internet. Also the possibility to program macro´s so you press one button to play and watch dvd and power on 5.1 surround system.....
How can the ir leds be tweaked?
michiel
Yes and since the cheapest usable tv remote controller with a more powerfull beam can be bought for around 5 dollar... why didn´t they put these ir leds in the mda xda ii?? max difference 1 dollar in large quantities?
With all these remotes laying around on the table (about 8 of them) tv remote on the pocketpc would be very usefull. Learning mode, program what you need or get them from the database on internet. Also the possibility to program macro´s so you press one button to play and watch dvd and power on 5.1 surround system.....
How can the ir leds be tweaked?
michiel
Yes and since the cheapest usable tv remote controller with a more powerfull beam can be bought for around 5 dollar... why didn´t they put these ir leds in the mda xda ii?? max difference 1 dollar in large quantities?
With all these remotes laying around on the table (about 8 of them) tv remote on the pocketpc would be very usefull. Learning mode, program what you need or get them from the database on internet. Also the possibility to program macro´s so you press one button to play and watch dvd and power on 5.1 surround system.....
How can the ir leds be tweaked?
michiel
the only useful app that ive ever found for any pda to control a pice of equpiment was one for a palm that i had,
the software was called mini-disk titler ,
you just filled in the track names on the screen then tapped on title. the pda then sent the sequence of button presses to title the disk in about 20 seconds , much quicker than faffing with all the menus on the player
ian
well the very brigth remote leds may not be able to transmit data as far as the ir in the xda
about extenders for the ir
http://www.pdawin.com/irtranceiver.html
http://www.homeautomationnet.com/Shopping/remote-control-accessories.asp
http://www.smarthome.com/8220A.html

Android and IR Remote Control

Hey all,
I am interested in the idea of using my phone to control my home theatre equipment. The ability to control any IR equipment with your phone would be a very neat feature and a nice selling point, especially as Google has made clear their intentions to enter the home automation field. However at present it seems very hard to do this with Android.
I know that a solution is to use an IR transmitter connected to the 3.5mm headphone jack. The leader in this market seems to be a company called ThinkFlood who have a product called RedEye Mini. Here's an explanation of how it works...
http://thinkflood.com/products/redeye-mini/#how-does-it-work
Unfortunately for us Android users the software is in beta testing and the RedEye Mini hardware is not compatible yet.
I am wondering if anyone can shed some light on this project and whether it can be achieved yet by any other means?
Also does anyone know whether native support of IR hardware has been considered for Android. Seeing as this technology could very easily be built into phones it seems like a smart move for Google with their home automation drive and all.
I am interested to hear your thoughts and solutions.
Thanks
The concept of home automation would be improved if IR were not used at all. Line of sight comms is very limiting. On the plus side of course it means there are fewer radio waves flying round my house and frying my brain!
I agree 100%. I need to keep all the brain cells I can
Unfortunately though most home theatre equipment still relies of IR and I believe it will for a few more years. Google should jump on IR if they are serious about home automation.
if you use XBMC than there is an nice app to control it and many more.
Controlling the PC is easy as apps can communicate with it via my home network. The problem I have is using my phone to communicate with other equipment such as my TV and AV receiver. For these the only way I can think of controlling them is via IR.
edcoppen, as far as I know you have 2 options for IR on Android:
1/ - Already available DIY solutions -
You can check the Androlirc application (that would be me!)
And a friend of the project has developed a enhanced Audio2IR module that is called Irdroid (mine was just a proof of concept)
You'll have to be (or get) familiar with LIRC to go down that path.
2/ - Anounced and "soon to be available" IR equipped Android devices -
Touchsquid
Conspin Andi One
That a lot of link dropping for a first post, I hope xdadevelopers will let me submit that... (Submit...) Yeah, that's what I thought, you'll just have to look for web sites by yourself then.
Anyway I think we're gonna get some action in the IR/Tablet world soon... Until we get rid of that 30 years old, one way tech (on the plus side, it "owns" 100% of the market and the battery autonomy for a traditional remote control has to be measured in years... that's close to an infinity in the Android world)!
Quite interesting that there will be IR equipped mobile devices any more. I thought the technology would die out. I actually still carry my Nokia N73 with me and from time to time change the channel on the TV in the pub. Great fun!!!
Yeah, I had a nokia 7650 ten years ago with an IR transmitter/receiver and used to have so much fun changing channels in my sports bar. I reckon the technology has less interest nowadays as we move further into the digital age. The best and easiest way to automate your home theatre and stereo systems is to connect them to a pc and control everything from your phone. there are tons of apps in the market that allow you to do this. I have tried a few and am currently using three I find the best: Unified remote (specifically for their spotify remote, which now a days is my stereo system, but they have tons of other remotes and works great over LAN), phonemypc (for me one of the best vnc apps in the market) and remote desktop client, a great RDP app. Whatever you can connect to your pc (with the right hardware/firmware you can even connect all the appliances in your home, even your lights and air-conditioned, to a main server) you can control from your phone, either through LAN - using your home network - or even away from home using the internet (WAN). IR is an obsolete technology in the digital age.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App
StreetGuru said:
Whatever you can connect to your pc (with the right hardware/firmware you can even connect all the appliances in your home, even your lights and air-conditioned, to a main server) you can control from your phone, either through LAN - using your home network - or even away from home using the internet (WAN). IR is an obsolete technology in the digital age.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont agree that it is a dead technology... yet! Most AV devices in the home still rely on it and unless i'm mistaken cannot be connected via the PC. Take for example my Samsung TV or my Harman Kardon AVR. I really want to be able to control these from my phone and cant find a viable solution. I have all the apps you mentioned and none of them help me here. You say via the right hardware/firmware can help... but what hardware would you use to connect the two devices I named to a PC, and how mush does it cost?
If an IR transmitter could be built into a watch 10 years ago I see no reason why it coultn't easily be added to a mobile phone. I know its personal preference but I would see it as a strong selling point.
IR hardware range too weak
My older HTC Windows phone had IR support, I had hoped to install AV remote sw on it. Found out the hard way that the IR range on many phones that had the hardware was only a few feet. It was intended as a bidirectional business card sharing type of thing before bluetooth took over. I'm thinking bluetooth is why most phones don't even have the IR hardware built in anymore.
I'm currently looking for a T-Mobile Froyo phone that has IR with sufficient range for AV remote use, any experts out there?
I don't want to depend on any dongles plugged in to the phone, but I would consider an external wireless box that had the IR command set and transmitter and a wireless way to communicate with the phone, preferably bluetooth so I don't have to turn on the wifi radio every time I use it.
i have a new enough Sammy tv to use DLNA etc, but that means turning on the wifi.

Universal Remote?

Looking for a remote I can use with my TV (not connected to the internet ) to control smile functions such as channel and volume up and down power and input. Is it possible to download one from the play store or side load one if there is none? I need it to work on a Samsung plasma tv.
I appreciate your help!
I don't believe the Nexus 7 has the required IR Transmitter to accomplish this. If, however, your TV supports Bluetooth, then it very well may be possible if your TV company has released an app to do this.

[Q] Ways to turn on the TV with the Ouya

I have a 4 year old Panasonic TV. It's not a smart TV, which is why I got the Ouya. But I'm wondering if there are ways to make the TV behave more like a computer monitor.
My computer monitor is always powered on, but looks at the DVI signal, and when there is no DVI signal (computer is turned off), the monitor also goes to sleep. As soon as the computer turns on, the DVI signal is valid again, and the computer monitor wakes up. I want a similar behavior for the Ouya.
For those with an Ouya, is there a way to set some kind of sleep timer on the Ouya to get it to turn off the HDMI output, but keep the Ouya on to run background apps (skype for example). Basically, I want the Ouya to be always on, but only turn on the TV when there are events (skype call, tasker event, mouse input)
Apps like Tasker have options to turn on the "display" - but tasker is usually run on a phone or tablet, so the display is built into the device. When apps that reference the "display" are run on the Ouya, does this refer to the HDMI output?
As far as I can tell, there would be no way to do this via a HDTV and the OUYA, but I could be wrong. In the HDMI setting (they may have taken this out due to the fact it does nothing, i haven't looked in the new builds) there was a toggle to always keep display on or not, I've tried it both ways and it never shut off the TV.
I think this is more of something built into the TV and not what's plugged into it.
The OUYA itself now has a sleep feature that's easily accessed by the controller, so if your TV does turn off when there's no display and back on when it detects it, that would work, but that'd be the only way.
Also, the OUYA isn't meant to be an "always on" system like a phone or tablet and I don't think services like Skype will ever be (officially) supported. There is no camera or mic built in or a way to attach them (I've heard some people were going to try USB, but I haven't heard of any results).
With all of that said, I'd be extremely interested if, when you got your OUYA and messed around with it, you found anything that accomplished what you're talking about!
Turn on energy saver/screensaver in the TV options. If you try Tasker and let us know what happens!
Depending on the tv it may have support for CEC which would theoretically allow the Ouya to send power on/off commands through hdmi to the tv. If not, the next option would involve some sort of tap(passthrough) on the hdmi cable that monitors the presence signal and emits IR commands to the tv accordingly.
Thats just my thoughts on it though.

New Firetv remote

Hello All,
has anyone got the TV controls for the new remote to work on the Firetv box Second generation? Weird that its not supported. I can pair it but cant control my TV? any work around?
You meant you can pair but can't control the Fire TV right? Its very sad that Fire TV 2 isnt compatible. Is it the Fire OS Version? Maybe we need Fire OS 6 for the new remote control to work?
Yes very sad! Theres no way to load fire os 6 on the fire tv 2?
I bought a fire tv stick 4K this week, because keeping the remote and selling the stick seemed to be cheaper.
I can confirm, that you can pair the new remote with the FTV 2 box.
In order to get the remote buttons for volume etc. for your TV set to work, you first have to configure the remote on an officially supported device. I did the complete installation procedure on the stick.
Obviously the infrared code of your TV is saved on the remote. When I connected it to the FTV2 box afterwards I could still control the TV (mute, vol +\-, power works).
Known issues:
- Voice search doesn’t work
- Remote loses connection when box goes into sleep mode - Box doesn’t wake up by pressing any button (Box is put into sleep mode when i power of the TV by pressing the fire remote power button)
- Remote loses connection from time to time.
I’m not sure wether the connection problems depend on my box (rooted, fw 5.2.6.6). Had similar issues with my Xbox-Controller some time ago, which I had to re-pair after every restart of the box (before it worked flawlessly with auto-by-connection for some weeks).

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