I'm using my TV remote as the flirc remote.  Mostly I'm just using the arrow buttons for XBMC, and the play/pause/volume buttons for XBMC/Netflix.

 

When I'm watching TV (not on the HTPC) and happen to click one of the flirc buttons on the TV remote, it also does some things on the HTPC.  It's usually not a big deal, but we don't always leave the HTPC in a "good" state for random arrow presses.  Sometimes we leave it in the middle of a movie, and accidentally pressing the play button gets the movie going again even though we're not watching it (HDMI input on some other device for example).

 

Does anyone else run into this issue?  Is there a way to make Flirc smarter?  I'm not sure how to define the conditions under which Flirc should take inputs, since the HTPC has no idea whether its HDMI input is currently selected by the TV...maybe someone here has a good idea?

 

I've thought about using separate remotes, or using a universal remote that has different device inputs, so for example the cable box mode operates the HTPC only.  But then I won't be able to use the regular TV remote for HTPC functions because it doesn't have device modes.

 

Only solution will be to put the htpc into deep sleep, wake on usb disabled to avoid unwanted actions by using your remote.

flirc is a "simple" ir receiver, which reacts on known ir signals. How should it know, if you want to control your TV instead of the htpc with flirc.

Such things can only be managed by using universal remotes and/or network related controls.

 

But for now, the only way is to unplug it.   :(