Wireless / Bluetooth remote control for rasplex

Third Party Apps & Tools
1

I have run RasPlex in the past but switched to a Fire TV as the plex channel for YouTube and BBC iplayer are crap and the other half uses those most of the time.

I’ve decided to get a Raspberry Pi 2 just for Plex duties as while the new interface is nice, it’s limited capabilities with regards to bitstreaming audio and direct playing formats is frustrating.

Where the Fire TV shines though is with its simple remote.

The Fire TV supports CEC, and it works fine, but 95% of the time I use the Fire remote because it’s so much nicer to navigate without the IR lag, the interface just feels much snappier.

Does anyone know of an alternative that will work well with rasplex, even better would be a universal remote that has either bluetooth or wireless capabilities.

2

@KodeStar said:
I have run RasPlex in the past but switched to a Fire TV as the plex channel for YouTube and BBC iplayer are crap and the other half uses those most of the time.

I’ve decided to get a Raspberry Pi 2 just for Plex duties as while the new interface is nice, it’s limited capabilities with regards to bitstreaming audio and direct playing formats is frustrating.

Not sure what you mean by this, Rasplex Direct Plays more formats with higher bitrates than any other Plex Client, MP4, AVI, VC1, MPEG2, WMV, WMA, WMA Lossless, MP3, M4A, FLAC, OGG, etc - which codec don’t you think it Direct Plays?

It also supports DD, DD+, DTS, TrueHD, DTS MA-HD (core only at the moment, next release will bitstream full 7.1), AAC Stereo, AAC5.1, anything else you were thinking of?

Where the Fire TV shines though is with its simple remote.

The Fire TV supports CEC, and it works fine, but 95% of the time I use the Fire remote because it’s so much nicer to navigate without the IR lag, the interface just feels much snappier.

Does anyone know of an alternative that will work well with rasplex, even better would be a universal remote that has either bluetooth or wireless capabilities.

Rasplex fully supports CEC out of the box (next release will include more functions as standard (Context Menu, OSD, Codec Info, etc).

If you still want an alternative to CEC for Rasplex then have a look at the RemotePi Board from MSL Digital - http://www.msldigital.com

Would also suggest that you also have a look at the Plex Black Edition skin from deadeyeflint in the Skins section - https://forums.plex.tv/categories/plex-black-edition.

Incidentally the iPlayer Plex Channel has been updated.

Regards

3

I use this WiFi remote because it’s snappy has 5 IR learning buttons.

1 Like
4

@NedtheNerd said:

@KodeStar said:
I have run RasPlex in the past but switched to a Fire TV as the plex channel for YouTube and BBC iplayer are crap and the other half uses those most of the time.

I’ve decided to get a Raspberry Pi 2 just for Plex duties as while the new interface is nice, it’s limited capabilities with regards to bitstreaming audio and direct playing formats is frustrating.

Not sure what you mean by this, Rasplex Direct Plays more formats with higher bitrates than any other Plex Client, MP4, AVI, VC1, MPEG2, WMV, WMA, WMA Lossless, MP3, M4A, FLAC, OGG, etc - which codec don’t you think it Direct Plays?

It also supports DD, DD+, DTS, TrueHD, DTS MA-HD (core only at the moment, next release will bitstream full 7.1), AAC Stereo, AAC5.1, anything else you were thinking of?

I was talking about the fire tv interface being nice but limited, hence me getting a pi for the extras

Where the Fire TV shines though is with its simple remote.

The Fire TV supports CEC, and it works fine, but 95% of the time I use the Fire remote because it’s so much nicer to navigate without the IR lag, the interface just feels much snappier.

Does anyone know of an alternative that will work well with rasplex, even better would be a universal remote that has either bluetooth or wireless capabilities.

Rasplex fully supports CEC out of the box (next release will include more functions as standard (Context Menu, OSD, Codec Info, etc).

If you still want an alternative to CEC for Rasplex then have a look at the RemotePi Board from MSL Digital - http://www.msldigital.com

Would also suggest that you also have a look at the Plex Black Edition skin from deadeyeflint in the Skins section - https://forums.plex.tv/categories/plex-black-edition.

Incidentally the iPlayer Plex Channel has been updated.

Regards

I know it supports CEC, but CEC/IR just isn’t that great, it’s laggy and constant missed presses make it frustrating to use compared to the fire tv remote (I tried it yesterday as the pi arrived). Also annoyingly CEC just stopped working last night, had to pull the power out of the pi. Not sure why it happened, but I pressed a button on the fire tv remote accidentally, which switched the receiver input to the fire tv, when I switched back to the pi CEC navigation would no longer work.

Not sure what benefit RemotePi Board from MSL Digital will give me as it isn’t CEC that is the issue really, but laggy IR.

I have ordered a harmony ultimate as that has bluetooth support and a bluetooth dongle, so hoping that will help

5

@benjaminwolf said:
I use this WiFi remote because it’s snappy has 5 IR learning buttons.

Amazon.com

Thanks, that looks closer to what I was after, it’s a good price, but wow, it’s ugly, lol.

I decided that as I need to control the Fire TV / TV / raspberry pi / AVR / Bluray player I might as well try the Harmony and see if I can get the bluetooth working.

6

@KodeStar said:
I was talking about the fire tv interface being nice but limited, hence me getting a pi for the extras

Sorry, my misunderstanding.

Regards

7

Well 2 bluetooth adapters and several wated hours later I finally have it working.

Anyone else wanting to do this, think twice and be prepared for a stressful evening.

The final working config was an asus BT400 and using the Microsoft Windows Media Centre SE device, and it works pretty much perfectly.

The only slight niggles are:

  • When first going to the activity - i.e. moving from “Watch Fire TV” to “Watch Plex”, which includes the devices TV, AVR and WMC SE - it takes 3-4 seconds before key presses start registering, after than it is super snappy and responsive, much better than IR/CEC
  • I’m not sure which are the best/correct WMC SE actions to apply to the buttons, as I’m not sure which names correspond to the correct plex/kodi action so I might not be getting the best out of it, and pretty much none of the on screen buttons do anything, for example it would be nice if the Recorded TV button went to the TV section, and Videos to movies or something.

I spent several hours trying to get this set up, the first adapter just refused to pair, Amazon Now to the rescue had a different adapter deliveres 1hr 50mins after ordering it. This one I had slightly better luck with, but it was still pretty flaky, sometimes it would pair, sometimes it wouldn’t, until I got a working device anyway, after that it has been fine.

I tried the PS3 as a device as I heard this should work, it didn’t, I tried a linux computer, this was supposed to allow you to pair it as a bluetooth keyboard, this sort of worked, but the only available buttons were the direction buttons and nothing else, I tried this a few times with the same results (or maybe that was the PS3 and the computer wouldn’t pair at all, I tried so many combinations they ended up merging into 1)