What's out there for remote control/automation systems?

[IVB]

Sorry, i'm feeling quite slow. Why wouldn't you let CQC/Girder handle the overloading? Thats what I do with my pause example on the prior page.

The pause button sends the command to either HD200, DVD, or Squeezebox based on what the source is set to.

Or is it that there's no way an automation system can know what to do, and that you're doing different buttons based on what you visually see in the room?

Apologies as I'm clearly not "getting" something, perhaps it would be easiest to take a specific use case of overloading, walk me through the devices, and how you currently work it.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by IVB

Sorry, i'm feeling quite slow. Why wouldn't you let CQC/Girder handle the overloading? Thats what I do with my pause example on the prior page.

The pause button sends the command to either HD200, DVD, or Squeezebox based on what the source is set to.

But that's easy, and I don't really consider that "overloading" (or maybe I should say that's not what I meant by it) because that button is labeled "pause" on the remote, and it always does pause.

Transport controls, navigation controls, numbers, etc, all the stuff for which there are labeled, hard buttons, which always do the same thing regardless of device (play is always play, volume is always volume, menu is menu, etc), those I'm not "worried" about, they're easy because, like I said, those buttons are labeled on the remote and they always do what they say. In my case the MX880 programming/punchthrough/macro functionality handles those, and in your case CQC does, and in either case it's transparent to the user because the buttons always do what they say.

Or is it that there's no way an automation system can know what to do, and that you're doing different buttons based on what you visually see in the room?

Apologies as I'm clearly not "getting" something, perhaps it would be easiest to take a specific use case of overloading, walk me through the devices, and how you currently work it.

OK, lets look at the first case, my "TV" activity, I've got all the usual command programmed to hard buttons, menu, navigation, transport, numbers, volume, channel, etc. I'm not worried about these.

But then I've got the soft keys, I've only got 6 soft buttons on the remote, and like I said above, for the TV activity, I've got 5 pages, for example at the same physical button on the remote I have:

• Don't Like
• Record (which is also a hard button)
• Favorite
• Video-Out

So one button does all of that depending on which page you're looking at, but you can flip pages on the remote and actually see those labels so you know what the button is going to do.

Flip to the Blu-ray activity and that same button can do:

• Red (which frankly I have no idea what it does, but it's a standard BD remote key)
• Top menu
• Video Adjust

Or lets look at it another way, in my TV activity I have all of the following commands available that don't have a home on any of the labeled hard keys:

• DVD Menu
• Watched
• Aspect (SSP)
• Options
• Don't Like
• Delete
• Photo
• TV
• Search
• Music
• Favorite
• Audio
• Aspect (SageTV)
• Video Out

That's 14 commands/macros (just for TV), without labeled soft keys, how would you integrate those and how would you know which button does what? How would you know what a button does in TV and in Blu-ray when it's not the same thing?

[Fuzzy]

On my MX500, my soft keys stay on the same page all the time... I don't find myself using most those buttons you list (Photo, for instance), as I just use the onscreen menus for those infrequent uses.

3-D Sage
24/60 Delete
16x9 Wii
Guide Home
Exit Info

There are even hard buttons on the remote I've never bothered to program. (Prev Ch, M1, M2, M3)

[stanger89]

I don't use all of them either, but I've had remotes programmed in the past where not all functions were available and it was a big pain when you needed something that wasn't there, so you'd have to go find the original remote. But even then I definitely use more than 6 soft keys between my Xbox, Sage, Blu-ray, SSP and Projector.

Actually ran into that mostly with my SSP.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I don't use all of them either, but I've had remotes programmed in the past where not all functions were available and it was a big pain when you needed something that wasn't there, so you'd have to go find the original remote. But even then I definitely use more than 6 soft keys between my Xbox, Sage, Blu-ray, SSP and Projector.

Actually ran into that mostly with my SSP.

Maybe that's the big difference here... I only use 8 commands for my SSP. Standby, HDMI1, HDMI2, Component1, VolUp, VolDn, and Mute. Those keys never change, regardless of what 'mode' I'm in.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by stevech

Re How-To automate without writing code... Homeseer.com and their user forum

Absolutely, I have been using HomeSeer for over 10 years now, and it's been controlling SageTv for the past 6. I had to write some code back then, but now you don't. If you also use HSTouch you can get a real slick interface.

Like IVB with CQC, HomeSeer also lets you have some awesome touch screens for automation control.

-Skybolt

[IVB]

sorry, just noticed your reply stanger.

Ok, now I see what you mean by overloading. Here's how I do that same thing on my softkeys. I'll mention CQC but Girder, HomeSeer can do the *exact* same thing.

In my MX850, I have 10 softkeys but many different pages. However, what I did was pick a random device I don't own, assign a unique IR code to each softkey-page, then train CQC to do whatever based on the IR code received. I didn't have to worry about a local device doing hinky things since I didn't actually own it, so only CQC would react.

I think I have something like 4 different unowned devices to correlate with the various pages.

So...did I get it right? Will that accomplish your goal?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by IVB

sorry, just noticed your reply stanger.

No prob, this is largely me thinking out loud about stuff, not actually looking for any imminent solution (I'm not abandoning Sage, but I'm also not planning to invest a lot of time or money into Sage-specific functionality at this point)

Ok, now I see what you mean by overloading. Here's how I do that same thing on my softkeys. I'll mention CQC but Girder, HomeSeer can do the *exact* same thing.

In my MX850, I have 10 softkeys but many different pages. However, what I did was pick a random device I don't own, assign a unique IR code to each softkey-page, then train CQC to do whatever based on the IR code received. I didn't have to worry about a local device doing hinky things since I didn't actually own it, so only CQC would react.

I think I have something like 4 different unowned devices to correlate with the various pages.

So...did I get it right? Will that accomplish your goal?

I'm not sure. Does your remote still "jump" to activity specific/customized pages? I suppose that would work, define a bunch of application-specific buttons with "generic" IR codes and then just let the backend handle what to do with those...

[IVB]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I'm not sure. Does your remote still "jump" to activity specific/customized pages? I suppose that would work, define a bunch of application-specific buttons with "generic" IR codes and then just let the backend handle what to do with those...

it doesn't, although thats a damn cool idea and would avoid me having to train folks to press a bunch of buttons to accomplish the same task. Right now everyone knows how to switch pages, but if I ever need to change something I could greatly simplify it.

[sic0048]

I'm running CQC and SageTV and have a very similar IR setup to what IVB is doing.

However I do use a Harmony remote with a 4 button LCD screen at the top that I do use for extra pages (similar to what Stanger is asking). I do use the device screen - so my first screen has "Play DVD", "SageTV", "Watch TV" - for raw TV without using Sage, "Play Wii", etc, etc, etc.

When you press one of those buttons, the remote sends out a single IR signal. This is beneficial for two reasons: 1) It is very quick - no having to hold the remote at the TV while a long macro executes. 2) You know very quickly if the command was read by the computer. If nothing happens, you can simply press the button again. But commands aren't lost in the system. Either the single command was read and CQC takes over handling all the macro on the backend, or nothing happens and you press the button again. I get about 99% success rate when the batteries are new, but that can go down to about 70% success rate as the batteries die.

When you press the device button, the remote will move on to the next screen where I have device specific button options. Something like "Delete" and "Set Watched" and "Previous Screen" on the Sage device screen. Or "Select DVD", "Lights Up" and "Lights Down" on the DVD device screen.

I do run my system like IVB where all the IR codes are captured by CQC and CQC will actually send the commands to the individual devices. All my components (SageTV, TV screens, DVD player, receivers, audio and video switchers, etc, etc, etc) are all either serial or IP controlable. The only IR used in my system is to capture the IR remotes from each room which are then converted to direct two way communication via serial or IP. It works really well and allows you to use either normal hard button remotes, or touch screen devices (like cell phone, computers, iPad, etc) depending on what is easier.

I use normal hard button remotes at the TV location, a touch screen computer display in my kitchen, and and use phones, iPads, even old HP PDAs around the house or outside to control everything (music, radio, select TV or DVDs, lights, alarm status, etc, etc, etc).