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User 17.06.2013 00:52:30 | ir receiver or bluetooth remote for MacBook Pro retina? | |
This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information. Hi all, I have just moved from the 2010 MacBook Pro (with handy ir receiver) to the new retina model (without handy ir receiver). Thinking that it would be simple to get a USB ir receiver I got a cheap one from Ebay. Needless to say, it doesn't work. Although I love my Apple Remote control I started thinking that Bluetooth would be a better option as the computer has this built in (so it must be better than infra-red right?) but it looks as though I'll need to buy a Wii or a Sony Ericsson phone to use Remote Buddy. I need some advice as to what I can make work. I use the remote mainly for iTunes but I don't want to pair my iPhone or iPod to my computer as I teach exercise classes and do a lot of jumping around. My Apple remote has been dropped countless times and I don't want to risk either of my more valuable pieces of equipment as I jump around like a fool or moving them continually in and out of my pocket. Any opinions would be gratefully received. Cheers, John | These entries from the FAQ may be relevant to this topic: Hardware
- Please make sure you have the latest version of Remote Buddy installed. If in doubt, download the latest version, quit Remote Buddy, delete it, empty your trash, then copy the downloaded version of Remote Buddy to your harddrive and start it from there.
- Please make sure, that you have installed the latest version of the Remote Buddy drivers. You can install the drivers using the Setup Wizard (=> access it via the Remote Buddy pulldown menu).
- Check your Remote Buddy settings in the Hardware category. Your remote control should be listed there and the lamp next to it should be green. If you don't find your remote control there, either the Remote Buddy drivers were not installed or installed in an outdated version - or - there is a general problem with the device. For USB devices, plugging the device to another port or resetting the PMU and/or SMC-unit of your Mac® (=> find guides on how to do this for your Mac® in the support area of apple.com) may help. If you can't find it under "USB" in the System Profiler (=> /Applications/Utilities) either, a hardware defect is as well possible.
- Check the batteries of your remote control.
- If your remote control has an on/off switch: make sure that your remote control is switched on.
- If your remote control requires additional receiver hardware: make sure that it is correctly attached to your computer and that it turns up in System Profiler.
- If you use an Apple® Remote, you should also check your system settings. Quit Remote Buddy, then open System Preferences.app > Security. Please make sure that the option to disable the infrared receiver is NOT active and click on "Unpair" should you have paired your Apple® Remote with your Mac®. After that, start Remote Buddy. If your Apple® Remote still doesn't work with Remote Buddy, please also check its preferences for the Apple® Remote. They can be found at Preferences > Hardware > Built-in IR receiver. If support for multiple remote controls is enabled there, ensure that your remote control is checked in the right table (=> you can find the correct entry for your remote control by pressing a button on it).
- If you are using a Keyspan™ RF Remote for Front Row, re-pair its remote control and receiver by simultaneously pressing the small knob on the back of the remote control and the knob on the receiver stick (the knob looks like the blinking LED, except it does not blink).
Hardware - Apple® Remote
To enable you to use all capabilities of the IR Receiver of your Mac®, Remote Buddy is using its own driver. In contrast, all other applications with integrated Apple® Remote support usually use the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem.
As long as you're running Remote Buddy, Remote Buddy and its driver are responsible for turning the received button presses into actions. As soon as you quit Remote Buddy, this task is again handled by the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem.
If other applications don't use the interface to the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem correctly, this can lead to the effect that nothing happens when you press a button on your Apple® Remote. For as long as you're running Remote Buddy, issues like this are covered by Remote Buddy and it's driver and are therefore not visible to you. However, as soon as you quit Remote Buddy, the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem is back in control and any issues caused in it by other applications become visible.
Therefore Remote Buddy is neither the cause of the issue nor is it responsible for it. Instead, the cause of the issue exists independently of Remote Buddy. It's located elsewhere and can also only be solved there.
Although our products can't cause any such issues, we're regularly contacted about such issues and asked for help. In order to make locating and fixing the cause of such issues as easy and efficient as possible, we've developed a free diagnostics tool: Remote Control Diagnostics. It can locate issues with a single click and will provide you with information about the issue as well as with instructions on how you can fix it.
Please update your copy of Remote Buddy to version 1.15 or later.
Hardware - Harmony® Smart Control Hardware - Sony® BD Remote Control
There's a bug in the Bluetooth®-stack of OS X® 10.8/10.9 in the context of pairing a Sony® PS3 BD Remote. OS X® 10.8/10.9 will ask you to enter a PIN code when you try to connect your remote control. This problem is known by Apple®.
If you pair your Sony® PS3 BD Remote with your Mac® for the first time
- Use Remote Buddy's Setup Wizard to pair your remote control
- Restart your Mac® directly after the pairing was successful, while the remote is still connected.
- The remote should now work without problems.
If you've already paired the Sony® PS3 BD Remote with your Mac®
- 10.9 only: Try entering 0000 as PIN and reboot. If you're lucky, that was all you needed to do. If this does not solve your issue, please continue with the steps that follow.
- First, we'll need to remove the Link Key of your Mac® from the memory of your remote control. Since this remote control can only store one Link Key, it's as easy as pairing the remote control with another Mac®. To do so, open System Preferences > Bluetooth on another Mac® and pair your remote with it.
- All steps that follow should be performed on the Mac® that you want to use your remote control with.
- Remove - if it exists - the entry of your remote control at Remote Buddy > Preferences > Hardware ® Bluetooth Receiver. The entry usually is titled "BD Remote".
- If existant, remove the device "BD Remote" from System Preferences > Bluetooth.
- Delete the Bluetooth preferences files by entering the following in Terminal.app and hitting return (Warning: this deletes all information about all paired Bluetooth® devices):
sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist
sudo rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist
sudo rm ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.Bluetooth.*.plist
Please enter your admin password when requested. Then restart your Mac®.
- Use Remote Buddy's Setup Wizard to pair your remote control
- Restart your Mac® directly after the pairing was successful, while the remote is still connected.
- The remote should now work without problems.
Hardware - Wii™ Remote In order to automatically activate the Bluetooth® Receiver on startup, enter the settings, choose "Hardware", then click on "Bluetooth® Receiver". Finally activate the checkbox "Search for supported remotes on startup". Remote Buddy will then automatically look for remote control paired through the "Setup Wizard" on next startup.
Hardware - iPhone™ / iPod® touch / AJAX Remote
The AJAX Remote of Remote Buddy, which you can view and use through your the browser on your iPhone™, works over TCP/IP and HTTP. The iPhone™ does only support these standards over WLAN and EDGE at this point, not via Bluetooth®. Please connect your iPhone™ to the same WLAN as your Mac®, then follow these instructions:
http://www.iospirit.com/products/remotebuddy/guides/ajaxremotesetup/
The Setup Wizard has been exclusively designed and developed for Bluetooth® remote controls, not mobile phones.
Currently, these browsers are officially supported by the AJAX Remote:
- Safari® on iPhone™ with OS 3.0 or later
- Safari® on iPod® Touch with OS 3.0 or later
- Safari® 4 or later
The AJAX Remote is using the latest web standards (like CSS3, which is often only supported sufficiently by Safari®) to utilize the available bandwidth and CPU power efficiently.
IMPORTANT: to use the AJAX Remote, your setup needs to meet all of the AJAX Remote requirements!
These are the most frequent causes for this kind of problem are:
- The AJAX Remote is not active. Please check in Remote Buddy's preferences, that you have enabled the AJAX Remote and that it shows the status "active".
- The OS X firewall is active and blocking incoming connections. Please read the entry "How can I define a rule to allow access to port 8888 with active Firewall?" for a step-by-step howto for fixing this problem.
- Bonjour® only works LAN-wide. In order to reach your computer by its Bonjour® name, it needs to be located in the same IP subnet - which in this case means that it must be connected to the same WiFi network. If your computer is connected to the same LAN (wired connection) as the WiFi Access Point, but not to the WiFi Access Point itself, your computer and your device are located in different subnets, whereas Bonjour® services usually can't be announced beyond the boundaries of subnets. Furthermore, the iPhone™ does only support Bonjour® addresses starting with firmware version 1.1.1. Older firmware releases can't make any sense of them.
The solution - in both cases - is to directly enter the IP of your computer on your device. Complete URLs for all network connections/interfaces of your computer can be found directly within Remote Buddy under "Preferences > AJAX Remote".
- A firewall / router does not forward connections. If you are trying to access your computer from the Internet, only a direct connection using the IP of your internet connection is possible.
- If your computer has a direct connection to the Internet without any intermediate router, Remote Buddy will show the correct IP address of your computer under "Preferences > AJAX Remote".
- If your computer is connected to the Internet through an intermediate router, only that router knows your current IP on the Internet. Furthermore, you need to make sure, that it forward connections to port 8888 to your computer. Please consult the manual of your computer to learn whether your router supports that function and how you can set it up.
- Our service for you: you can let our server tell you your current Internet IP at http://www.iospirit.com/myip/.
Thanks for your interest in the future of Remote Buddy. Of course the iPhone™ SDK is also of interest to us.
Please understand, though, that we don't talk about future products or plans prior to to their close-to-complete-realization or release.
If you want to stay up to date on this topic, we recommend to follow us on Twitter or subscribe to our newsletter or RSS feed (find all links at the footer of the product page). News will be available here, first.
| Thread-display::- ir receiver or bluetooth remote for MacBook Pro retina?, User, 17.06.2013 00:52:30
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