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The Remote Project

THE PERFECT HTPC REMOTE?

by Dalibor Lanik

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For your Android box or other HTPC, you can attach normal keyboard to it but it is kinda weird. It makes sense to go wireless and it makes even more sense to go small. Do you want to keep full sized keyboard on your table? No I wouln't want to. And then, that's only part of the problem. You need the mouse. OK, if your HTPC is properly confugured and stable, you'd need mouse just occasionaly. But you still need it. But you don't want to use keyboar and mouse at all times. You need keybpar only occasionaly as well. To type in a name of the movie in search box, for instance. And mouse when you play a game or need to do administration of your box. You'd ofcourse, want to use your HTPC with a remote. Because that is most convenient and simple way.



So we're up to 3 devices. Remote, keyboard and a mouse. What if we could replace all that with 1 device? It had to be small to be a remote so that means the keyboar wouldn't be that convenient as a full sized keyboard, but you won't write "War and Peace" on your HTPC.

Welcome Rii i25A. A combo device that is a remote (IR - for your TV) and remote (RF - for your PC) and keyboard (RF) and mouse (airmouse)... also with a built in microphone and earphone 3.5 mm jack!

HARDWARE

The remote is well build. It fits nicely in the hand as the remote (portrait) and as a keyboar (landscape). The keys are good, a bit different feel on the spacebar because it probably has 2 switches cause it's longer, but nothing to worry about, just a slightly different fell when you press it in the middle as opposed on the key-end. The only thing that looks a bit strange is on-off switch which has a bit "loose" feeling, but it works OK.



The range is good, I am able to operate tvbox from across the room, let's say 3-4 meters.

The orange keys on the remote side are IR, because you can use them with your TV. All these keys are mappable, you can just read IR commands from your existing TV remote. So you can use this (if you map it logically) as the only remote for your TV and your TV box.

Air mouse takes a bit getting used to, but that's just the way it is. It is never gonna be as precise or practical as normal mouse but it is good enough for occasional use. When you turn the remote on, the airmouse is on by default so if you don't want to use it you must turn it off manually.

When off, only IR part works, for mouse and keyboard, you have to turn it on.



The battery life is excellent, for me it works 1-2 weeks on single charge, but I don't use it that much (1-2 hours a day at most). It charges pretty quickly, like 30-40 minutes.

As an added bonus, the remote has built in microphone so if you attach earphones to it, you can use it to talk on Skype etc.

SOFTWARE - USE WITH KODI

There is nothing to setup on the software side. The problem with KODI is that some keys are not mapped. I tried mapping with KODI built in editor, but it didn't work. I don't know about windows, but on Android you need to be rooted and edit system files in order to map these keys, and for me it is not a big deal - I am always rooted on all my devices :)



So here is short manual how to remap the keys if you have this problem...

REMAPPING THE KEYS THAT DON'T WORK IN KODI

One of the problems with any remote/keyboard can be special buttons. No keyboard/remote can truly be universal, across multiple platforms, Android, Windows, Linux, MacOS... That is why some buttons don't work right out of the box. On i25A, 3 buttons simply were not visible in KODI. Even though KODI has key mapping feature, it just wouldn't work with these 3 buttons. So we have to go a bit deeper into the system.

It requires editing android system, so you have to be rooted. Let's see how to make these keys visible to KODI.

* install KeyEvent Display from Play Store
* run KeyEvent Display app
* press the keys you want to find out keycodes. They will be displayed. Note the codes. In my case 155, 217 and 172 (envelope, search and home)
* Install ES File Explorer from Play Store, turn on root in it and give it root rights.
* From ES, navigate to /proc/bus/input
* copy devices file to your SD card, or just view it from ES.
* in the list of devices, find your keyboard. Mine looks like this:

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=1997 Product=7b03 Version=0110
N: Name="  Multimedia Air Mouse Keyboard"
P: Phys=usb-dwc2_b-1.2/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/dwc2_b/usb1/1-1/1-1.2/1-1.2:1.0/0003:1997:7B03.0001/input/input4
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=sysrq kbd event4
B: PROP=0
B: EV=120013
B: KEY=10000 7 ff9f207a c14057ff febeffdf ffefffff ffffffff fffffffe
B: MSC=10
B: LED=1f


* note Vendor and Product. In my case Vendor=1997 Product=7b03
* Now, go to /system/usr/keylayout in ES
* copy file Generic.kl to your PC for editing
* rename file Generic.kl to Vendor_<vendor>_Product_<product>.kl, i.e. in my case "Vendor_1997_Product_7b03.kl"
* download EditPad Lite if you don't have good editor. DO NOT USE notepad. The file must be in UNIX format (LF only)
* edit the file - find the keys noted in step 3, i.e. I edited key 217 to F11 and key 155 to F12, and key 172 to F10:

key 155   F11
key 217   F12
key 172   F10


* save file, pay attention that the output uses LF as line breaks (UNIX standard)
* copy file to your Android box
* copy file to /system/usr/keylayout
* set permissions to 644 (just look what other files in this folder have) -rw-r--r--
* reboot

Now, even if anything goes wrong with the keyboard mapping file, you'll still be able to connect normal USB keyboard to the TV Box, since we only added keymapping for one specific keyboard (That is, our Rii i25A).

OK, now that we changed Android mapping, we can simply map the F10, F11 and F12 keys (since they work in KODI) to the commands of our choice (in KODI):

* Create file keyboard.xml on your PC and map the F-keys:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<keymap>
  <global>
    <keyboard>
    <f10>Menu</f10>
    <f11>Stop</f11>
    <f12>ShowSubtitles</f12>
    </keyboard>
  </global>
</keymap>


* Change the commands to your liking. For a full list of commands and more info on keymapping in KODI, go to http://kodi.wiki/view/Keymap. Again, respect the line breaks standard for UNIX (LF only)
* copy the keyboard.xml file to folder Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/userdata/keymaps on your TV Box
* Restart KODI, and that's it! :)







CONCLUSION

All in all, this is outstanding remote. Good battery, wuality build for great price and above all, best features of all remotes I've seen. A true companion for any HTPC.








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