Adding support for Nvidia Shield TV

[stage]

Hi,

 

The Nvidia Shield TV is a great Android device and I was wondering if the 'back button' and 'home' button could be programmed by Flirc?

If not would it be possible to include this within a Firmware update?

 

Thank you!

Stage

[jason]

Considering I work at NVIDIA full time, you'd think I would already have this done. I work on the Tesla line though, and it's been a really rough project schedule.

I have been asking my friends on Tegra for a unit so I can get this done, it's been slow going, but I'll get it done soon.

It's just a matter of mapping the keys. I tell you what, if you plug in a keyboard, and report back to me all the missing key buttons that show up on their basic remote, I'll credit back to you your order.

Let me know how that sounds Sage, I'll put together the GUI update to take care of that for you.

 

[stage]

That's great to hear that you work at NVIDIA!

Unfortunately, at the moment I do not have a Shield TV due to money constraints. I'm looking to get one in this month though.

Hopefully in the meantime someone else will be able to provide the information you need if they have a unit.

I really appreciate your response though and look forward to any development on this front, thank you very much.

[Shenhua]

Hello,

I recently got my Shield TV and is also a old user of Flirc previously on OpenElec.

I ll be glad to help you get what you need if you can send me a little how to.

Cheers

[stage]

Hello,

I recently got my Shield TV and is also a old user of Flirc previously on OpenElec.

I ll be glad to help you get what you need if you can send me a little how to.

Cheers

Thanks so much for replying to this thread!

Hopefully @jason will be able to direct you on what's needed :)

Edited October 6, 2015 by stage

[jason]

Yeah absolutely. Just need help mapping keyboard keys to the NVIDIA remote. If you can put that together, I'll get your order refunded.

[stage]

Hello,

I recently got my Shield TV and is also a old user of Flirc previously on OpenElec.

I ll be glad to help you get what you need if you can send me a little how to.

Cheers

@Shenhua would you be able to provide the info for Jason?

Thanks in advance, if you can!

Edited October 11, 2015 by stage

[Shenhua]

Hey sorry, I thought I followed this topic and that i would receive an email.

@jason how do you propose I should do that? Do you mean test every keys and try to find what is what?

[jason]

@jason how do you propose I should do that? Do you mean test every keys and try to find what is what?

Yeah, just hook up a keyboard and see if you can figure out what all the keys are. Save them in an excel spreadsheet, and that should be more than enough for me.

Thanks Shenhua.

[Shenhua]

Hi,

So I tried every keys and some usually common combinations on my keyboard in the main screen of AndroidTV and in different applications and there isn't much to say.

The only way to go back to the Homescreen that I found is to use Alt+Tab to try and switch recent applications but somewhat for me it is always empty so it goes to the homescreen.

The arrows are working correctly, and even though the Backspace sometime work in some applications it doesn't seem to work with the officials applications like Youtube or TED talks. To navigate in those the echap key is needed.

Using the Cmd or Windows key brings up the voice search input but says something like "Cant connect, try again later" but I think it's just that he cant connect to a microphone. This input is not typable...

I tried to use the FireTv preset of flirc for Back, Home and Menu keys but only the back button works for the SHieldTv.

 

EDIT: Oh and my keyboard also have a sleep key and it worked!

Edited October 23, 2015 by Shenhua
Added information

[ixian]

Hi all, 

Did this ever get resolved? I've been a multi-Flirc user for years but just got a Shield TV. It is an awesome little device and Flirc works fine with it when I'm in Kodi, but there's no back/home button support outside of it. Anything I can do to help?

[drumst1x]

@jason I've also got the shield (and, because Nvidia rocks, the remote is in the mail for free ;) ).  I've got FLIRC on my 2 ouyas and on my fire tv (thanks again for making such an awesome product).  Using harmony 650's and one Harmony One.  Just tried setting the One up for native SATV IR, but of course, as everyone else mentioned, there are commands missing when in Kodi ("i" for info, "c" for console window, numbers, etc).  I'd also like to just move one of my FLIRCs into the SATV, and I've got USB keyboards available to test/map anything.  

Aside from that, Jason, would you be able to utilize some of your "friends" to get a list of what USB-commands map to what controls in the SATV?  That might be better, since it seems like the user who already tried to help had some problems identifying any other behavior.  

I believe the remote and gamepad for this device are both Bluetooth.  Is there any way we could connect those devices to some other source on a computer, and simply read what commands are coming in from them when the buttons are pushed?  Kind of like an IR Learning when IR doesn't exist.  I'm not at all sure if this is even possible, but just an idea.

Let me know if I can help in any way.

[drumst1x]

Yeah, just hook up a keyboard and see if you can figure out what all the keys are. Save them in an excel spreadsheet, and that should be more than enough for me.

Thanks Shenhua.

I tried to @ mention you in my previous reply, but i don't think i was successful, so just replying to this so you hopefully get a notification :)

[sofakng]

@‌‌jason / jason - I'm also interested in using the Flirc on my NVidia Shield.  Unfortunately I purchased my Shield just before the free remote promotion this past weekend, so I don't have a remote to test, but can Flirc be used to discretely wakeup/sleep the Shield TV?

[jason]

I'm trying to get one guys. 

[nitewulf]

I can report that flirc does wake up the Shield TV.  The button I have on my universal remote mapped to the 'Enter' key on the full keyboard layout, wakes up the device.

Here's what I've learned from tinkering with a Logitech K400r keyboard:

 

Single Keys

Esc - Back, Previous Screen/View

Tab - Cycles though current row of selectable items in UI.  Seems to loop back to the 4th to last item when you reach the end of the row and press 'Tab' again

Start - Brings up voice search window.  It is a slightly different then pressing the voice search button on the remote.  If an app is open that has a search function, the remote will use that. i.e, in google play store allows voice search of store;  In ES File Explorer it focus's input on the search field and opens the virtual keyboard.  The Start button in contrast always opens up the universal google voice search/command

L/R/U/D all do the expected navigation functions

Enter - mostly works as expected.  Exception is the CBS News 24/7 app.  Works to launch app, but cannot select any videos or start the live stream.  Only app I've seen like that.

Space - again only in the CBS News 24/7 app, Scrolls right, current selection does not change

Multiple Keys

Alt + Tab - Release Tab and see screen that says "Your recent screens apear here" (i've got plenty of android apps open but none appear).  Release Alt and you're back Home.

Shift + Tab - Moves backward through the current row in the UI.  Loops back to the 4th item.

Start + Enter - Home

K400r Logitech Keyboard specific:

volume up/down - works as expected

mute - as expected

Search - opens up open apps search, just like voice search on remote

Music - launches google play music

Home - Home

Play/Pause - as expected

Next/Previous - as expected

 

Couldn't find anyway to fast forward or rewind.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Edited December 7, 2015 by nitewulf

[whiskaz]

Regarding the Enter key:

I noticed that while using the onscreen android keyboard, the enter/return key on my physical keyboard would not select a letter,etc but would instead move to the next field or submit the form. However, if I use the enter key by the number pad, it selects the letter as expected. Of course the flirc doesn't see the enter keys as different from each other. Apparently android does? 

[whiskaz]

So here's how to resolve the enter key issue:

Using this as a reference: http://www.usb.org/developers/hidpage/Hut1_12v2.pdf

The keypad 'Enter' is a different code than the regular 'Enter/Return'. It's Dec ID is 88. I used the flirc_util command line app to record that enter key as follows:

flirc_util.exe record_api 0 88

Then hit the button on my remote that I wanted mapped and voila. Now the remote works with the onscreen android keyboard as expected.

It didn't seem to make a difference with the CBS app though. Not sure what that's all about!

[SomethingSomethingDarkSide]

Hi, is there any update to this?

I have just purchased two Flircs for my Shields, and have set one up so far with my Harmony 650 but I am getting less than positive results.

I have added it as a device in MyHarmony as a Flirc Media Player (Flirc Kodi) and most of the Kodi specific commands do not respond. What device have people set this up as if not as a Flirc with the Kodi profile?

One thing I noticed in this profile is that Kodi on the Shield will not distinguish between Up and Page Up, or Down and Page Down. There is no Page effect, it still only moves it one point at a time, and not over several items.

 

EDIT:

Sorry, realised I had misunderstood how the Flirc worked. I simply applied the Flirc Kodi profile to my Harmony and did nothing else.

I didn't realise I then had to do the extra key mapping with the Flirc program, all sorted now.

 

I now have all that I have selected working except for Full Screen command in Kodi. I have tried both Backslash "\" and Tab which are both related to Full Screen commands, and neither works.

 

Not sure if it helps, but here is a link to the Pronto Hex Codes for the Shield - http://pastebin.com/T1m8K61v

Edited December 28, 2015 by SomethingSomethingDarkSide
Extra knowledge

[brimnac]

I noticed I just had to program the Page Up & Page down, they were set to the up and down keys instead. Only a few items needed to be changed from what I could tell. 

[gyre]

I just bought a flirc to go with my shield.  I also have a harmony smart control.

I ran the harmony app on my ipad and created the flirc/kodi device.

I then created an activity which used a hybrid of both the flirc/kodi device and the shield IR device.

For the non-fully-working shield functions: OK, home and back, I used the shield's IR.

I used the default flirc/kodi bindings for the rest.

Mostly, it appears to work OK, however I've run into the following problems under kodi:

• the "page down" flirc harmony command acts like down arrow instead.
• the "page up" flirc harmony command acts like up arrow instead.
• the "codecinfo" flirc harmony command doesn't seem to generate anything. I'd have thought that it would be mapped to the key 'o'.  If I press it when I'm in a text box (like the search box on google play) nothing gets output.

As a workaround I tried to find a harmony flirc "full keyboard" device, but there didn't appear to be one in the harmony database.

-- gyre --

[SomethingSomethingDarkSide]

Mostly, it appears to work OK, however I've run into the following problems under kodi:

• the "page down" flirc harmony command acts like down arrow instead.
• the "page up" flirc harmony command acts like up arrow instead.
• the "codecinfo" flirc harmony command doesn't seem to generate anything. I'd have thought that it would be mapped to the key 'o'.  If I press it when I'm in a text box (like the search box on google play) nothing gets output.

After spending hours on it yesterday, you seem to have done the same as me, simply added Flirc Kodi to your MyHarmony setup. You then need to use the Flirc program to make sure keys are mapped correctly.

So download the Flirc program (site is giving an error at the moment), insert your Flirc to computer, Select Controllers  - Full Keyboard and then program the Page Up, Page Down and Codec Info to the relevant keyboard commands.

I have Up, Down, Left & Right  using the Shield IR commands and Page Up & Down as the Flircs Kodi commands

[gyre]

After spending hours on it yesterday, you seem to have done the same as me, simply added Flirc Kodi to your MyHarmony setup. You then need to use the Flirc program to make sure keys are mapped correctly.

So download the Flirc program (site is giving an error at the moment), insert your Flirc to computer, Select Controllers  - Full Keyboard and then program the Page Up, Page Down and Codec Info to the relevant keyboard commands.

I have Up, Down, Left & Right  using the Shield IR commands and Page Up & Down as the Flircs Kodi commands

Oh you star! :)

This is what I did, hopefully following your instructions correctly, and it appears to have worked...

Firstly, using the harmony app I bound the flirc/kodi commands I wanted (page down, page up, codecinfo) to keys on the harmony remote.

Next I started my "watch shield" activity on the harmony.

Then, I put the flirc dongle on a pc and ran the flirc gui.  I selected full keyboard.

Then using the flirc gui I selected the "page down" key on the keyboard and pressed the "page down" key on the remote.

Same for "page up".

Then selected the "o" key on the keyboard and pressed the key I'd bound the codecinfo command to on the remote.

All 3 remote keys now appear to work fine on kodi 15.2 running on the shield.

Thank you so much! :)

-- gyre --

Edited December 29, 2015 by gyre

[brimnac]

I realize this is probably really lazy of me, but I'm not in a position to test at the moment but does anyone know if the KODI Add On for FLIRC is still a viable option to program? It'd be nice to not need to jump between my computer and the Shield, and it seems like a lot of people are running into the issue of Page Up / Page Down in the Harmony Programming issue. No worries if no response, I can obviously check tonight but I don't frequent these forums too often so I may forget to follow-up here once I find out.

[jason]

I'm going to release an update to address the basic functionality of shield soon. 

Outside of Kodi, can anyone tell me what the mapping is for the most basic functionality of mimicking the shield remote?

Can anyone confirm the following for me.

Can you record the "home" key from the firetv controller in my desktop app and see if that brings you home?

Also the other key is the return key, did anyone figure out what that maps too on a keyboard?