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Using Flirc with Amazon fireTV


tonyski

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You should change your interkey_delay settings in the gui to 5 or 6, that should help the repeat 

 

I'm not sure what you mean zoomin/zoomout? You referring to Kodi?

 

How are you doing your standby? Did you map a specific key?

 

Thanks I will try that one with the interkey.

 

ZoomIn/Out are two special keys that can be found in some keyboards with extra keys like:

- multimedia keys: play, ffwd, rewd, stop

- Open Browser, open music, open email

- Go Home, Go Back, Zoom In, Zoom Out

 

I am sure that you have seen one of those keyboards at some point.

 

The standy I do it just following your instructions on one of these forums (I cannot remember which one, I read several). I map the "power" button from the multimedia profile in flirc to one of the remote keys.In my case, the power button. :-)

Unfortunately it doesn't trigger a CEC command to send a shutdown command to all the connected devices, but it is enough like this.

 

[EDIT] I tested the interkey_delay set to 6. But my understanding from this post https://flirc.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201366933-Double-Key-Presses is that if I want to get multiple key presses I have to reduce it to 0. My problem is that I press the button for long and it does send only 1 press. However 0 or 6 didn't make any difference.

 

And I have observed, after switching on the fireTV that sometimes it takes around 30seconds for flirc to start taking the signals properly. E.g. I switch on the unit, and I press right arrow. It doesn't do anything in the next 15-45 seconds. I let it be and then....yes, it works again normally. Is this familiar to anybody?

Edited by fgarcor
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Mrs. had been having intermittent difficulty with the 5-way on our universal remote due to a motor skills problem. I was able to duplicate what she was experiencing almost literally by just thinking about holding the buttons rather than just clicking them. On a whim, I replaced the Fire TV remote programming with the Minimalist programming and noticed an improvement. I then changed the Inter-Key Delay from the default 3 to 2. She can now navigate the Fire TV without any issues.

 

I hope this will help someone having similar difficulties.

 

Jason: Can you confirm a difference in the code between the Minimalist setup and the Fire TV? I'm guessing the Fire TV is sending a more continuous burst, whereas the Minimalist only sends one or two bursts?

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Mrs. had been having intermittent difficulty with the 5-way on our universal remote due to a motor skills problem. I was able to duplicate what she was experiencing almost literally by just thinking about holding the buttons rather than just clicking them. On a whim, I replaced the Fire TV remote programming with the Minimalist programming and noticed an improvement. I then changed the Inter-Key Delay from the default 3 to 2. She can now navigate the Fire TV without any issues.

 

I hope this will help someone having similar difficulties.

 

Jason: Can you confirm a difference in the code between the Minimalist setup and the Fire TV? I'm guessing the Fire TV is sending a more continuous burst, whereas the Minimalist only sends one or two bursts?

 

 

There is literally no difference in how buttons are sent via minimal or firetv. In fact, I will say that the buttons are probably different and might inhibit normal operation in some contextual menus.

 

I'm guessing the interkey delay is doing most of the improvement. When you switched, did you clear your configuration?

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I'm guessing the interkey delay is doing most of the improvement. When you switched, did you clear your configuration?

No. I only erased what was programmed for the 5-way on the Fire TV so I could replace it with the Minimalist. The software insists on that.

 

Goofier still, I had previously tested all the Inter-Key Delay setting without any success.

 

Just to further my misunderstanding with an example, do *all* of Flirc's controllers "UP" arrows send the same string and at the same rate?

Edited by sweller
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Just to further my misunderstanding with an example, do *all* of Flirc's controllers "UP" arrows send the same string and at the same rate?

 

There is no "rate control" in the Flirc itself. All Flirc does is that it reports to the operating system that the key is pressed. What controls the repeat rate is the operating system itself. For example, in Windows, there is a keyboard configuration applet in the Control Panel that allows you to change the repeat delay and rate. There may be some differences between how the operating system handles different keys.

 

I don't know what keys are used for the Fire TV, but the minimalist controller is just using keyboard cursor keys for direction buttons and enter key for center button.

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Ah, well. I spoke too soon anyway. A most unusual thing about folks with motor control difficulties is they aren't consistent. That is to say they have good days and bad days, good hours and bad hours...

 

Mrs. got up from a nap and can't consistently control the Fire TV.

 

Am I using  the Inter-Key Delay correctly? 0 = No Delay and 6 = Maximum Delay (600mS?)?

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Ah, well. I spoke too soon anyway. A most unusual thing about folks with motor control difficulties is they aren't consistent. That is to say they have good days and bad days, good hours and bad hours...

 

Mrs. got up from a nap and can't consistently control the Fire TV.

 

Am I using  the Inter-Key Delay correctly? 0 = No Delay and 6 = Maximum Delay (600mS?)?

 

not quite 600ms, but yes.

Can I recommend getting one of the harmony line remotes? They are good for exactly this reason, they don't allow accidental pushes and insert delays for 100% consistency. They come in 30 dollar models. 

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I am new to FLIRC and attempting to control Fire TV for the first time. I have made progress as far as updating the device firmware and have read through the previous posts. Unless I am missing something, I am not getting any results for control. I am using a Bitwise controller with CCF Pronto Hex IR Codes for the Fire TV. The codes are good as I have used them on other control systems successfully but not with FLIRC as the interface. I tried to load the config file my_flirc_config.fcfg that schneid posted in July 2014 and that did not work either. I have a total of three FLIRCs to add to this system, all for Fire TV. Any suggestions/help would be appreciated.

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I am new to FLIRC and attempting to control Fire TV for the first time. I have made progress as far as updating the device firmware and have read through the previous posts. Unless I am missing something, I am not getting any results for control. I am using a Bitwise controller with CCF Pronto Hex IR Codes for the Fire TV. The codes are good as I have used them on other control systems successfully but not with FLIRC as the interface. I tried to load the config file my_flirc_config.fcfg that schneid posted in July 2014 and that did not work either. I have a total of three FLIRCs to add to this system, all for Fire TV. Any suggestions/help would be appreciated.

I'm not sure what you are trying to do. Can you fire up the GUI, head to the FireTV window under controllers, and manually pair your buttons?

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I just got a Harmony 650. It's my first ever Harmony remote. Using the MyHarmony software I set up a Sony VCR as the dummy device to use to teach commands to the Flirc. The default inter-key delay is 100 ms, and I can set it for anything in the 0 - 1000 ms range. Are you saying that if I adjust this setting it may help with the return button repeat issue? What do you recommend for the setting?

 

Also, there's a setting called "command repeats". The default setting is 3, but it can also be set at 2, 1, or 0. What I glean from reading the help file is that lowering the value will help with the type of problem we're experiencing. Is that true?

 

I'm away from my system right now or I'd test these settings.

 

On the other hand, if I weren't away from my system right now I'd probably be catching up on my TV shows instead of playing with the Flirc and the FireTV.  :)

Edited by Herman Trivilino
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I'm not sure what you are trying to do. Can you fire up the GUI, head to the FireTV window under controllers, and manually pair your buttons?

I can see the GUI, I chose FireTV on the controller tab, but not sure what to do to pair the buttons. There is no remote to learn from. I attempted to record the PC keyboard commands as mentioned, but not sure of the process.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not sure if it may help other people or not but I accidentally figured out that if I learned my Roku remote the keypresses worked perfectly with the firetv.  No extra keys, no invalid commands.  When I tried any other remote including my XBMC I got extra keypresses and wrong commands.  So try a roku remote if you have one!

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flyingflirc - Just wanted to say I was able to use your suggestion and it worked perfect.  While I didn't have an older IR Roku remote to use (mine are all motion so they use Wi-Fi direct) I did have my Harmony set with a Roku config for all buttons.  I had just swapped my Roku 3 for the fireTV (I was using the fireTV remote while I worked on getting my FLIRC properly configured) so I just used the Harmony to send the codes to my FLIRC and then tested.  ABSOLUTELY flawless !  Now I will simply rename the device/activity to fireTV.

 

Since this worked it actually makes adding the fireTV to a Harmony super easy, even if you don't have access to an older IR Roku remote:

 

1) Add a Roku to your Harmony (I used the Roku 3).

 

2) Rename the device to fireTV

 

3) Add activity, map the Roku keys to whatever keys/soft buttons you want [NOTE the fireTV button that looks like 3 horizontal lines should be mapped to the Roku * (asterisk) button]

 

4) Use Harmony to program your FLIRC

 

5) Put into fireTV USB port and test

 

Thanks again for the great help !!

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Not sure what you mean by Harmony FireTV profile.  I am using an older Harmony 900 and there wasn't a way to add a FireTV to the remote - but knowing the Fire is bluetooth based I wasn't too concerned. Based on this thread (I know some of it goes way back) it didn't seem like the FLIRC came with anything programmed in it.  When I loaded the software on my desktop and plugged in the FLIRC I could not find anyway to verify what (if any) codes were preset.  I will admit I never tried to just plug it in to the FireTV and go.  Maybe I made this harder then it needed to be -  :o

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> There is a Flirc - FireTV profile in harmony control center. It's in the media center category.

Thanks for the info! Is this also recommended for controlling Kodi, as there are only very few buttons on the FireTV remote compared to what Kodi could use?

What are your best practices for Kodi on ftv with Flirc and a Harmony? Simply use a dummy device or use the special Flirc/FireTV device?

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  • 3 weeks later...

This thread is of great interest to me because I just bought an Amazon Fire TV a few days ago.  It's really good for XBMC - smoother than my HTPC and it doesn't crash if it's left in screensaver mode for a couple of hours - but unlike the thing it replaced it's got nowhere near enough control with the default remote.  I use a One For All URC7960 remote to control it and I had some special shortcuts set up for all the buttons, for example the Red button sent it to the Movies Library while in most screens, in live video it does Audio Sync adjustment without going into several menus and in the File Manager it performs a copy.  XBMC allows context sensitive use of the controls but of course the Amazon remote doesn't have almost any buttons, let alone the red/green/yellow/blue shortcut buttons that I'd need.  Easily remappable using the XML files and FLIRC if it's as powerful as it looks.  It's on order anyway... :-D

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There is a good tutorial for setting up Amazon Fire TV with Kodi. I added info in the comments at the bottom for setting up a Flirc + Harmony remote with it. You can completely customize the FTV and Kodi using keymap.xml to make all the buttons work how you want inside Kodi. Check it out here:

 

http://www.tweaking4all.com/home-theatre/xbmc/kodi-on-amazon-fire-tv/

 

Here is my comments for setting up Harmony One with FTV/Kodi/Flirc

 

http://www.tweaking4all.com/home-theatre/xbmc/kodi-on-amazon-fire-tv/#comment-101177

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  • 2 weeks later...

So is there not going to be any solution to the multiple presses being registered in XBMC on the FireTV?

 

Ditto

 

All gone quiet here, is the solution remote dependant ? mine's a 350.

 

Tried all suggestions above.

 

Roku solution works but there are then no repeats at all so skimming down a menu is not possible, navigating a menu needs multiple button presses.

 

Others still having problems ?

Edited by jakey
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