Login at Kodi Home

skrowl · (This post was last modified: 2014-04-11, 22:23 by skrowl.)

Has anyone found a good Android app for controlling the Fire TV? The era of the hard plastic controller is over, in my opinion. Remotes are just one more thing to lose / need batteries / need recharging / etc. Yatse + BlueBoard makes my Ouya 100% smartphone controller, and I'm hoping there's something similar that I can do on my Fire TV. There are lots of "ZOMG make your phone a remote for your PC!" apps on Google Play Store, but all of them seem to require a proprietary server software to be running on your Windows PC / Mac.

TL;DR - Need an app on my phone that acts as a bluetooth keyboard and/or controller for Fire TV.

denmalley · (This post was last modified: 2014-04-11, 22:24 by denmalley.)

This might be like predicting the stock market but what's the general feel for whether the ATV2 will hold its inflated value over the next few months, now that the fire TV is out? I'm thinking it might be nice to get two fire TV's for the price of one ebay'ed ATV2, but kind of want to make sure my first one works well enough and passes the Spouse Test before giving up the apple and getting the fire.

lookup1980 · 2014-04-11, 22:39

Hi,

This is my first post here.
Did anyone try Airplay?
Airplay and Yatse don't work for me.

dismantler · 2014-04-11, 22:41

(2014-04-11, 22:11)nero12 Wrote: My question is the installation process i am sure can be done a lot simpler ?

We dont need to download the entire 510mb sdk zip file right ?

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthre...?t=2588979 Might work

nickr · 2014-04-11, 22:42

(2014-04-11, 22:19)skrowl Wrote: Has anyone found a good Android app for controlling the Fire TV? The era of the hard plastic controller is over, in my opinion. Remotes are just one more thing to lose / need batteries / need recharging / etc. Yatse + BlueBoard makes my Ouya 100% smartphone controller, and I'm hoping there's something similar that I can do on my Fire TV. There are lots of "ZOMG make your phone a remote for your PC!" apps on Google Play Store, but all of them seem to require a proprietary server software to be running on your Windows PC / Mac.

TL;DR - Need an app on my phone that acts as a bluetooth keyboard and/or controller for Fire TV.

What about yatse?

elmerohueso · (This post was last modified: 2014-04-11, 22:57 by elmerohueso.)

(2014-04-11, 22:11)nero12 Wrote: we all know eventually this box will be a great device.

My question is the installation process i am sure can be done a lot simpler ?

We dont need to download the entire 510mb sdk zip file right ?
we can just make a new download folder with the platform folder only ?
and then add a folder inside platform folder wihere user can add his desired apk files.
and then have a notepad where the user add his "firetv ip"
and then a batch file which will execute the few lines one by one. and install the apk's from the folder and also grab the ip from the notepad file.

isn't this simple to accomplish ?

I am no developer, but if the above makes sense, i can give a try and make one, but it will take me a day

let me know if what am saying makes sense please

Yes, it could be simplified. Downloading the entire SDK isn't necessary (if you cant find just the ADB utility somewhere else), but it's the best way to ensure you have the current version of ADB. Also, there are many existing programs that allow you to easily perform actions over ADB via a simple GUI. But in short, your question is really "What's the easiest way to install APKs over ADB?", which is just an Android question, and is not XBMC-specific. I'd recommend checking out some solutions for this over on XDA-developers.com.

For me, the path to ADB is in my Windows PATH variable, and I know the IP for my Fire TV. Installing an APK is as simple and opening a Command Prompt from the folder containing my APK, and running "adb install <APK>". Use TAB to autocomplete the file name of the APK, and the command takes 2 seconds to type.

(2014-04-11, 22:41)dismantler Wrote:
(2014-04-11, 22:11)nero12 Wrote: My question is the installation process i am sure can be done a lot simpler ?

We dont need to download the entire 510mb sdk zip file right ?

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthre...?t=2588979 Might work

You could get even smaller, as you only need adb.exe, adbwinapi.dll, and adbwinusbapi.dll. Drivers aren't even necessary in this case as we're using ADB over wifi.

hogfan · 2014-04-11, 22:53

(2014-04-11, 22:23)denmalley Wrote: This might be like predicting the stock market but what's the general feel for whether the ATV2 will hold its inflated value over the next few months, now that the fire TV is out? I'm thinking it might be nice to get two fire TV's for the price of one ebay'ed ATV2, but kind of want to make sure my first one works well enough and passes the Spouse Test before giving up the apple and getting the fire.

I just sold mine on eBay this week. Hardware wise, the FireTV is MUCH better. I always thought the UI on ATV2 was too slow anyway. Had it for 3 years and got twice what I paid for it new. Can't beat that!

-hogfan

ozkhan1 · 2014-04-11, 22:58

(2014-04-11, 22:19)skrowl Wrote: Has anyone found a good Android app for controlling the Fire TV? The era of the hard plastic controller is over, in my opinion. Remotes are just one more thing to lose / need batteries / need recharging / etc. Yatse + BlueBoard makes my Ouya 100% smartphone controller, and I'm hoping there's something similar that I can do on my Fire TV. There are lots of "ZOMG make your phone a remote for your PC!" apps on Google Play Store, but all of them seem to require a proprietary server software to be running on your Windows PC / Mac.

TL;DR - Need an app on my phone that acts as a bluetooth keyboard and/or controller for Fire TV.

Oh dude, trust me this has been talked about at length before.

The WAF (or GAF) comes into play here. My wife absolutely hates having to use her phone or tablet. And if you have guests in the house, are you going to hand them your phone?

For the bed room, yes I will agree with what you said to a certain extent but ergonomically speaking as well as considering the wife acceptance factor and such, I do not believe old fashioned remotes will be going away any time soon.

**Tinwarble** · 2014-04-11, 22:59

(2014-04-11, 22:39)lookup1980 Wrote: Hi,

This is my first post here.
Did anyone try Airplay?
Airplay and Yatse don't work for me.

Yaste does work, but you have to manually set it up.

In XBMC you need go to Settings/Services on turn on controls for Webserver and Remote Control.
Then in Yaste, when you add a new device you need to input the FireTV's IP address and Port shown in Webserver.

ozkhan1 · (This post was last modified: 2014-04-11, 23:03 by ozkhan1.)

Is FTV HDMI CEC compatible?

If the answer is yes, you might not need a different remote and you can just your TV's remote.

thess · (This post was last modified: 2014-04-11, 23:23 by thess.)

Remote tangent, the fix for the Ortek MCE IR problem I mentioned earlier (up/down keys getting double pressed) was to set the device 'command repeat' in the Harmony software for the device to 1. (Not 3, not 0, 1.) NOW I have my Harmony remote fully controlling the Fire and XBMC the way I want it to. (*Thinks about making snarky "boyfriend acceptance factor" joke, refrains*)

On another tangent: In the last 10 minutes, the Voice Search button on my Fire remote has stopped working. It appears to work, registers your voice volume, says "Thinking..." and never returns any results. Does anyone know if the Voice Search has to talk to Amazon servers to work? If anyone is reading this with the Fire in front of them, can you give your Voice Search a quick test and tell me if it's working? Wondering if something is down on Amazon's end. (Have restarted the Fire...it was literally working like 10 minutes ago.)

EDIT: It's working again now, out of nowhere. So I do think there's a cloud-side component to the Voice Search, maybe?

thess · 2014-04-11, 23:29

(2014-04-11, 18:45)jocala Wrote: I'm having trouble with the ORtek VRC-1100 for xbmc, can someone help?
I need to activate context menus,info,etc. The media play buttons seem to work out of the box.

I tried the keyboard.xml below, but it doesn't seem to work. It was posted in 2009, it may not be valid for frodo/gotham, idk.

I'm stumped.

snipped

Did you try pressing every button on the Ortek? One of the stock buttons brings up Info for me, maybe the one with I on it? Can't remember for sure, just press every one and write down what they do. I did have to use the KeyMap editor addon to map one of the Ortek's buttons to the Context menu, though. Worked fine.

jocala · (This post was last modified: 2014-04-12, 07:35 by jocala.)

If you want just windows adb w/o the sdk here's a package: adb for windows 1.0.31. No muss, no fuss, just adb. This works with xp and win7 haven't tried it with win8.x. Virus-checked, d/l from a reliable host, I packaged this when I was doing phone dev.

FishOil · 2014-04-11, 23:59

(2014-04-11, 22:19)skrowl Wrote: The era of the hard plastic controller is over

Not a chance. Its still the best way.

Touch screens are clumsy and have no ability to tell what button you are pressing without looking.

Touch screen remotes are nothing but a novelty at best.

thess · 2014-04-12, 00:27

(2014-04-11, 23:59)FishOil Wrote:
(2014-04-11, 22:19)skrowl Wrote: The era of the hard plastic controller is over

Not a chance. Its still the best way.

Touch screens are clumsy and have no ability to tell what button you are pressing without looking.

Touch screen remotes are nothing but a novelty at best.

I very much agree. I want tactile feedback and physical buttons. (For that matter, I never went in for the very expensive touch-screen-only remotes either.)