Kodi Community Forum

I have been using Kodi on five PCs in my network for quiet a few years now. While Windows as an OS was always too hard to administrate on so many PCs I was using OpenElec instead. Now the Shield TV box seems to deliver an even more interesting plattform since it offers a lightweight player, low power consumption and Android as OS, which gives the option to use nicely designed apps instead of only plain Kodi addons (Netflix, youtube etc.). But most of all it filled the last blind spot that OpenElec always seemed to have: Gaming. While Windows-PC would require expensive hardware (and cause the aforementioned administrative complexity) Android - and especiall the Shield TV Box with its graphic powers - delivers a siimple and affordable plattform for Kodi AND gaming, the ultimate media box.

So for christmas I got myself my first NVidia Shield TV box and currently I am still planning on buying another three to have the same plattform all over my home network for media playback and gaming. But switching from OpenElec to an Android box I currently have three big issues to solve which I need some advise for:

1. Previously I was able to wake up all my OpenElec PCs from standby remotely via WoL (wake on lan) and administrate them via SSH. Now I managed to get SSH-access to the Shield TV box as well by installing SSH-droid. I was even able to get the Shield TV Utility to work via network as another useful tool for remote administration (having had to connect the box via USB for at least one time to get the confirmation dialogue popping up). But I have not been able to find a way to wake up the Shield TV box from sleep mode via network (WoL) yet. Any idea how I could do that? Currently I would have to run around in my home and wake them up manually.

2. With my OpenElec PC I was able to use a master/slave-socket outlet to have my TV and my receiver starting together with the PC. I only needed to press the start button of the remote control that I used to control Kodi with and everything turned on. And also when I switched off Kodi all peripherals were turned off as well. Now using the Shield TV the power consumption in idle mode seems too low to cause the slaves to turn on. And when I lower the threshold all slaves stay on all the time, even when I put the Shield TV box in sleep mode. I tried using CEC instead, but while my TV (Samsung) is turned on together with the Shield TV Box my receiver (Onkyo) is not. And both are never turned off when I put the Shield TV in sleep mode. So CEC does not seem to be a solution yet. Do you have an idea how to turn the peripherals on and off together with the Shield TV box?

3. Using the Pulse Eight CEC adapter with my OpenElec-PC I had perfect CEC support. Most importantly I was able to adjust the volume of my receiver with the remote control of my Kodi PC. But though the Shield TV box claims to support CEC I never got the Shield remote control to adjust the volume of my receiver. Do you know a solution for that?

Thanks it advance for any help!

FantasticN

1. I have not found a solution for WoL. But you can use the Back-Button of the Android TV Remote App on your Android phone to wake the Shield from Standby. Unfortunately, the App does not connect to my Shield most of the times, but you could have more luck.

2. My Onkyo Receiver does wake up with no problems, when the Shield is configured to wake up the devices via CEC. But as the Shield is currently not able to power down the connected CEC devices, I did it the other way around: I set my TV up to wake up and shut down the CEC devices when it is powered up/down. So I can now control the power of the TV, Amp and Shield with my TV remote.

3. Did you set the volume settings in the Shield system settings to CEC?

Hi wweich,

Thank you very much for your reply and your suggestions.

1. Actually I have no Android Smartphone or Tablet, but iPhones and iPads. Unfortunately there seems to be no Android TV remote control app for iOS I could try. However, your suggestion seems to indicate that waking up the Shield TV does not necessarily mean sending a magic packet (WoL signal). Shield TV seems to be listening on the ethernet port to different signals then. I already realized that the Shield TV box is not actually "offline" when in sleep mode for my router shows it still being connected. So maybe there is kind of a signal I could send from my Windows PC to wake up the Shield TV box. But I do not know which.

2. I have the TX-NR636 and somehow it is not waking up. The receiver seems to route all signals from the Shield TV box straight to the TV not reacting to any of them itself. I have also been thinking about using my TV remote control, but this would mean using different remotes for starting, shutting down and volume control on the one side and navigating in Android TV and Kodi on the other side (I like the Shield TV remote control). Also I currently have five different TVs connected to my five Kodi PCs and I would very much like to use the same remote control at every place (which would be the Shield TV remote control, if I get Shield TV boxes for every spot) not five different remotes.

3. Yes I did, but it still is not working.

Meanwhile found a solution for my first question (WoL of the NVidia Shield TV box) that I want to share:

1. I have already installed the Google USB Drivers on my PC and enabled adb over network on the Shield TV Box (had to do it via USB connection once to get the confirmation dialogue on the box and then it kept working via LAN). And thanks to some guy in the NVidia-Forum I now was able to write a batch that seems to do the trick. It starts the Shield TV Box via network (if it is in sleep mode) or puts it into sleep mode (if it is already running). The batch looks like this:

adb kill-server
adb start-server
adb connect 192.168.20.103
timeout /t 5
adb shell input keyevent 26
adb kill-server

So now I can turn the Shield TV box on and even off via network. That's perfect!

2. As to the master/slave issue: I have not been able to find a socket outlet with a low enough threshold that would let the NVidia Shield TV box trigger the slaves to start. Such socket outlet would have to have a threshold of about 3-4 Watt only. Most of them have 8 or even 10 Watt. But I have a master/slave socket that has a USB port and is triggered by USB power. Unfortunately the Shield TV box keeps the USB ports in power when it falls into sleep mode. So the socket outlet holds its power for the slaves as well. But I realized that the green LED lights go out when the Shield TV box falls into sleep mode. So I was wondering if there is a way I could connect the trigger of the master/slave socket outlet to the LED lights instead of the USB ports. Unfortunately I am not a big expert in electrical engeneering. And I do not know if the LEDs are powered with 5 Volt to match the power that is requested by the master/slave socket outlet via its USB trigger. Does anyone have any idea if that is the case? Does anyone know any detailed screenshot or layout of the LED connection inside the Shield TV box?


3. As to the CEC audio control of the receiver's volume I can only hope for a patch with the next firmware update of the NVidia Shield TV box. It seems there is some work to do for NVidia as to the CEC support of the box, also as to the CEC shut down signal.

Regards,

FantasticN