Comment on Your TV set has become a digital billboard. And it’s only getting worse.

• Aceticon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’ve got one of these with Kodi running on top pretty much all of the time so it works as well as a dedicated remote on a dedicated media box.

  The upsides are that as I said it just works as one expects a remote and whilst it is wireless, it also has an infrared emitter and 5 programmable buttons for it, so I also use it to turn on my TV and sound bar.

  The downsides are that the little keyboard on the reverse side is a bit awkward to use, especially if you need to type uppercase characters, special characters or numbers, the air mouse is a bit too finicky to use (both of which are extras beyond the normal remote functionality, so it’s no problem unless you expect to replace a keyboard + mouse or remote login once in a while for Linux maintenance tasks) and this specific remote won’t work if it’s slightly tilted for whatever reason (bug? stupid design decision?) - which is a bit of a downside of this model - and, of course, it can’t actually turn your PC ON because it’s wireless with a USB dongle which the PC won’t read if it’s not ON (though maybe it will work fine if one uses hibernate and keyboard wake-up as the remote for the PC just looks like a Keyboard+Mouse device, but I haven’t tried it and just have that PC on all the time because it’s also a home server)

  it’s my understanding that when you press a button these things just send down the pipe a key-press of a letter matching the function of the button (so for example the menu button is ‘m’) which just so happens are the Kodi shortcut keys for those functions (I reckon these things are standardized rather than “coincidence”).

  You can see in the recommendations on that page various other similar models. I reckon that as long as you avoid the “Voice command” stuff (which is tightly tied with Google Android) and go for a wireless remote which looks it it has a many buttons as a normal remote, you’ll be fine. Keep in mind that traditional, IR remotes, won’t work for controlling something like a PC because the PC has no built-in IR receiver or software for support such a remote (normal IR remotes are pretty custom with different codes for different makers and even devices, rather than standardized as this one seems to be).

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  • asexualchangeling@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Saving this for later, And yeah, while I think having a keyboard on the remote would probably be useful. I plan on using a wireless keyboard and mouse as well because my plan involves using a more powerful computer so it can double as a gaming machine.

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