User

08.07.2007 10:29:38

Hi, the support section mentions that the Sony BD Remote is supported and that there is a section dedicated to it in the FAQ. I could not find this.

How well does it work? Thanks.

Can I keep the Apple Remote dedicated to Front Row and use the Sony BD Remote with Remote Buddy?

Last edited: 08.07.2007 10:35:58 

User

09.07.2007 10:58:32

Hi RB,

I use a Sony BD Remote exclusively, and it works great. It is far more responsive than with a IR remote. Also, there are enough buttons to be assigned with keystrokes, scripts, or other events.

The greatest disadvantage though, is the battery usage. I am using NiMH rechargeable cells, but so far I have not gotten more than two days of usage with them. There are options in RB that allow an extension of battery life though (eg. disconnect when sleeping/ after some minutes of inactivity) but I haven't tried those.

The AppleRemote definately has a better (like 2years) mileage.

Regards, 
Robert 

User

10.07.2007 06:24:09

Thanks for answering Robert. I bought a remote but I find I have to pair it with Remote Buddy everything single time I stop and start RB. Do you have the same problem? I would like to pair it once and have it work forever.

You have me worried about battery life now...

Also, I would like Remote Buddy to completely ignore my Apple Remote but I want the Apple Remote to work the way it did before with Front Row, System Volume, Power Off, etc. Unfortunately when I disable Apple Remote in Remote Buddy, it disables it completely even for default Apple Remote behavior. I would just like Remote Buddy to ignore the Apple Remote completely and let it be the way it was. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Last edited: 10.07.2007 08:15:31 

User

11.07.2007 10:13:17

Hi RB,

yes, everytime I start RB I have to pair the remote, however, it doesn't require any user interaction within RB - I just press start and enter on the Sony Remote, and off they go, paired together.

Battery life really is an issue. What I miss is a battery status indicator. But all my bluetooth devices eat a lot of juice if compared to their infrared counterparts, so I kind of expected that. Still, I wish my Sony Remote would last as long as my Apple keyboard. But one should not forget that RB 1.05 is the first release with support for the remote - I think not even Linux-geeks have managed to get support for the remote, let alone Windows.

I don't have a Apple Remote capable Mac, so I cannot comment on any of the issues involved with it.

Regards, 
Robert 

User

11.07.2007 22:07:01

Thanks for pointing this out. I'll add some entries in the FAQ 
regarding the Sony BD Remote soon based on this thread.

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

11.07.2007 23:04:02

Thanks for asking.

As Robert already answered (thanks for jumping in!), you don't have 
to pair it every time via the wizard, but keeping the Start + Enter 
combination pressed for a few seconds will be sufficient to connect 
the remote to Remote Buddy.

Regarding battery life: I didn't manage to run out of battery power 
on the BD Remote yet, but then I didn't use it for several hours in a 
row yet.

Bluetooth, while *grossly* more efficient than WLAN, will always eat 
up your batteries' power faster than an IR remote, as the latter 
needs only a tiny fraction of what Bluetooth requires. Keep in mind 
IR remotes are comparably simple constructs, while Bluetooth has to 
deal with a real protocol, keep the connection alive and do other non- 
trivial things.

For the BD Remote, I see no further optimization possibilities as 
Remote Buddy is not performing any operations on the BD Remote but 
rather just waits for incoming data. The only way to save energy is 
to use the two event / time driven auto-disconnect options Remote 
Buddy offers for Bluetooth remotes.

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

11.07.2007 23:27:01

I'm not sure whether the BD Remote can report its current battery 
status. At least, I haven't found any references to this either on 
the web nor in experiments with the remote, yet :-/

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

12.07.2007 09:50:15

I haven't had the remote drain its batteries yet but I havne't been using it that long either.

Felix, it would be nice to have some nice defaults for this remote... it seems to be very labor-intensive to map the buttons so having the buttons mapped out by default might be nice.

Do you have any idea about my Apple Remote question? I would like the Apple Remote to retain its existing behavior in Mac OS and use the Sony BD remote exclusively with RB.

Thanks again!

Last edited: 12.07.2007 09:53:04 

User

13.07.2007 09:58:48

Hi RB,

I agree it would be nice to have some behaviours for the Sony Remote, however, as it is quite different from all other remotes supported by RemoteBuddy so far, with so many dedicated buttons, I am not sure if everybody would be happy with the presets.

I edited three behaviours: one for EyeTV, DVD Player, and VLC each. And yes, it was quite laborious, but if you take your time (if you have it) it was also delightful to see the baby growing :-) However, I am certain you would do them differently. Anyway, if you are interessted, I can mail them to you.

Regarding battery life, I have not gotten more than three days out of the original batteries that were supplied with the remote. Now I am using NiMH, and they last about two days. However, I have not used any of the mentioned energy saving options. I'll try those over the weekend, when I actually get to watch a movie or two.

Regards, 
Robbe

User

13.07.2007 12:38:01

Yeah, actually I plan to add sensible default mappings for the BD 
Remote for iTunes, EyeTV and other multimedia apps. Remote Buddy 
Behaviours can supply different default mappings for each remote 
control, so finetuning will not be a problem.

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

14.07.2007 22:12:00

I still wish there was a way to disable Apple Remote support without affecting the existing behavior. Shouldn't it be easy to remove the Apple Remote code from Remote Buddy?

Robert, I would be very interested in your DVD/VLC bindings! Thanks much!!

rbfan @ asimov.openface.ca. 

User

16.07.2007 17:14:11

Hi RB,

I am afraid I don't know how to mail my behaviours. I can only find behaviours within the RemoteBuddy package, but nowhere else. I assume those are the presets, though, not my versions.The promising place ~/Library/Application Support/Remote Buddy/Behaviours is emtpy.

Do you know where the data is stored?

Regards, 
Robbe 

User

17.07.2007 16:33:02

Hi there,

one of the unique features of Remote Buddy is the ability to emulate 
a full-fledged Apple Remote - on any Mac.

So, what you want is perfectly possible. Just attach the respective 
"Virtual Remote" actions to their button counterparts in Prefs > 
Hardware > Apple Remote. You can find more info on how to do this in 
the feature linked to at the bottom of the Remote Buddy website main/ 
overview page.

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

17.07.2007 16:39:01

Hi Robbe,

if you created Behaviours of your own, you can find them at

~/Library/Application Support/Remote Buddy/Behaviours

If you "just" created your own "custom actions" directly in prefs, 
you can find them at

~/Library/Preferences/com.iospirit.remotebuddy.customactions.plist

If you entered them in the Behaviour Construction Kit and marked them 
global, you can find them at

~/Library/Preferences/com.iospirit.remotebuddy.factory.plist

Finally, button mappings can be found at

~/Library/Preferences/com.iospirit.remotebuddy.jp.s.bd.plist

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

18.07.2007 06:39:35

Thank you for the response Felix.

Thank you very much Robert for sending me your customizations!!! I haven't tried them out yet, but I sure will.

Unfortunately I have just had my BD remote drain its first set of batteries... and I just bought it.

Felix, it's my understanding that the remote powers down fairly often with the PS3. Pressing any button on the remote wakes it up immediately without needing to re-sync again or wait a long time... do you think this might be possible with Remote Buddy?

Thanks a million again to both Robert and Felix!! 

User

19.07.2007 20:02:01

I'm not sure how the PS3 would handle this, then as it presents to me 
as a hen-egg problem:

Remote Buddy would need to be able to detect the button press to 
react to it and to establish a connection. But then, without a 
connection, a button press can't be detected.

The comparably high power consumption is simply a limitation of the 
Bluetooth technology. However, you keep your costs low and the 
environment clean(er) using rechargables. I've bought a bunch of 
those when I started adding support for the BT based remotes.

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

20.07.2007 02:32:44

Felix, this is what happens on the PS3: When the remote goes into sleep the first press of the button wakes it up. The second press of the button has the desired effect. So in a way you have to "double-click" the button to get the desired effect.

I am not sure if this can be handled in RB or not, but this is how the PS3 does it. If possible it would certainly be nice to have this option.

Thanks!!

User

20.07.2007 10:38:43

Hi Felix,

I also wondered about the Hen-Egg-Problem, in my case with the Apple Remote Keyboard. Its batteries last for months, and still I can wake up my Mac by pressing any button on its keyboard. There seems to be some pairing that goes far beyond sleep - sounds like a harmonius marriage to me.

Maybe the BD remote supports the same kind of energy saving technology, but this is pure speculation. Sony's documentation is probably meagre at best.

Regards, 
Robert

PS: Enabling RemoteBuddy's energy saving options prolonged my BD Remote's battery life to more than 10 days so far. 

User

20.07.2007 19:49:34

Robert, but with the energy saving you have to pair the remote much more often, correct? Thanks for your insight!

Still haven't given your bindings a try yet, I hope to get to it this weekend (looks like it will be raining outside). :) 

User

23.07.2007 20:03:58

Hi RB,

well, it's not really a pairing process, more a connecting thing. I simply press start and enter - that's it. I don't have to do any action within remote buddy. 
Do switch your remote between the PS3 and your Mac? Then you'd have to pair them, I suppose.

Robert 

User

23.07.2007 22:36:01

Thanks for the info!

I'll see what can be done!

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

23.07.2007 22:40:02

Hi Robert,

please keep in mind the Apple keyboard has twice the number of 
batteries as the BD remote. As said, I'll dive deeper into the 
Bluetooth specs and stack and what's possible with it as I find time 
to do so. Apple's Bluetooth support and docs are somewhat suboptimal ;-)

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

28.08.2007 02:17:26

Hi Felix! you not rights.I have keyboard and mouse of Apple, 2 
batteries of mouse as 4 batteries of keys, live from 2 to 6 
months(sony rechargables 2500mah)!!!.Please see that it made with the continuation of the life 
of 2 batteries of sony BD remote !!! 
P.S 
keys & mice of Apple using not sinc or re-sinc. 
Apple use half-sleep,therefore keys & mice it is always ready to "the shadowing" and not it consumed. 
SEE AS WORKING LED OF WIRELESS MICE APPLE 

User

28.08.2007 11:24:01

Pardon, but I am right. Things are a bit more complex than this.

1) The energy efficiency of Bluetooth devices will greatly differ as 
will the hardware and chips they have built-in. Or said differently: a 
VW Lupo may run up to1000 km with 30 liters of fuel. A BMW X3 might 
only be able to get as far as 200 to 250 km with the same amount of 
fuel. Now the BMW X3 doesn't need so much fuel because of a software 
problem. You can't compare BT devices as if they were identical just 
as you can't compare cars as if they were identical.

2) Apple ships its own drivers and can optimize both drivers and 
hardware to play well together. These drivers run as kernel extensions 
and thus must have direct access to the Bluetooth stack - something 
that's not available to anybody else. The regular BT API for 
developers is entirely user space based and certainly lacks a feature 
or two that is available in kernel space.

3) The BD Remote support is based entirely on findings that have been 
made. Sony does not document its remote control. Thus, it's not only 
unknown whether special power saving features exist nor how to access 
them should they exist.

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

28.08.2007 21:22:15

Тhe apology. 
I have Mac G5 without ir buindled, I dreamed to control my Mac on remoting and i purchased your app. 
Fully functional, 102 button (perfect)...! And gran the disappointment (power managment of BD remote). If posible,at least,make real disconecting and re-connection of BD remote from/to Mac more rapid. 
Sorry. 
Thanks!

P.S 
I have to do charger for BD remote? 
Or was update for this... 

User

30.08.2007 21:54:01

Rest assured, that if I should get knowledge of a way to save battery 
power, I'll try my best to implement it in Remote Buddy.

The time needed for disconnect/reconnect is already as low as Apple's 
Bluetooth stack currently permits.

I didn't really understand the question in your P.S., but if you asked 
about rechargable batteries, then yes I strongly recommend to use 
rechargable batteries as it's better for both the environment and your 
pocket. I use them all of the time.

Best regards, 
Felix