TiVo Slide



Tivo Slide and Slide Pro were made for use with various Tivo DVRs, but can be used with many Kodi-based HTPCs.


 * Slide-out QWERTY keyboard
 * Backlit keys
 * Bluetooth (original) or RF (Pro) operation for most keys
 * Ability to program some keys (Volume/Power) to use IR to control a TV or AVR's volume, etc
 * The ability to make the remote chime a song to find it if you lose it in the couch

However, the remote does not work completely out-of-the-box with Kodi. This page will describe how to set up the Slide remotes using either Windows or a Linux-based install (such as Ubuntu or OpenELEC).

= Windows instructions =

= Linux instructions =

Setting up the original bluetooth Slide remote
There are two modes of operation for the original bluetooth version of the Slide.


 * USB HID Emulation [Recommended]
 * The dongle presents itself to the computer as a USB keyboard. It uses bluetooth to communicate with the remote, but does not expose bluetooth to the computer in any way - it is just a USB keyboard.


 * Bluetooth Device [Not Recommended]
 * The dongle presents itself to the computer as a bluetooth adapter. Through this adapter, you can connect to the remote as a bluetooth keyboard. This setup has been problematic, and therefore is not described here.

Configuring which mode is a bit of a mystery. Simply plugging into a Ubuntu machine seems to put the dongle into bluetooth adapter mode. In order to force it into USB HID Emulation mode, you need to completely disable bluetooth on the computer, as described below.

Disable Bluetooth
Disabling bluetooth is necessary to force the dongle into USB HID Emulation mode. There may be another way to do that, but so far this is the only method discovered. From a command line, issue the following commands:

Pair Remote and Dongle
You can now pair the remote with the dongle as described in the manufacturer documentation


 * 1) On the TiVo Slide remote, press and hold the TiVo button and the blue "B" button simultaneously until the activity indicator light blinks blue
 * 2) On the dongle, press and hold the button until the LED starts blinking
 * 3) After a few seconds, the remote's activity light will blink rapidly 5 times and then go off if pairing is successful

Setting up the Slide Pro

 * 1) Plug in the Slide Pro USB dongle into the HTPC.
 * 2) If your dongle came with the Slide Pro remote, then it's likely already paired to the remote. If you bought the dongle separately, or otherwise need to pair the remote to the dongle, then you will need to pair them.
 * 3) When you insert the dongle, press and hold the button on the dongle for 5 seconds to ender pairing mode. This should be indicated by a constant green blinking light.
 * 4) Now press and hold both the "TiVo" button and the "Back" button until the remote LED lights up red. It will now search for a dongle to pair with for 30 seconds.
 * 5) The remote should now pair with the dongle. If not, try consulting this page: http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2774

Fixing the non-functional keys
Some of the keys on the Slide remotes should now work, but many of the very important buttons need additional modification. The following steps apply to both the original Slide and the Slide Pro.

Re-map problem keys
We need to create a file to map the "problem key" scancodes to usable keycodes. First we're going to create a file located in  called


 * 1. Open up a terminal command line window or SSH into the HTPC box and type the following command. To make it easy to cut and paste, consider doing this from a desktop interface on the linux box, if you can.




 * 2. Enter your admin password if prompted.


 * 3. Cut and paste the following into the new document:






 * 4. Press to exit editing and then press  to save. The file name should already be correct, so press  to actually save the file.

We will now create a udev rule file to load the hwdb file when the USB dongle is detected.




 * 5. Go back to the terminal command line and enter the following command:




 * 6. Enter your admin password if prompted.


 * 7a. For the original bluetooth Side remote, add the following to the file:




 * 7b. For the newer Side Pro remote, add the following to the file:




 * 8. Press to exit editing and then press  to save. The file name should already be correct, so press  to actually save the file.


 * 9. Now enter the following command to load these changes

Further map keys using a Kodi keymap
Create a plain text file called tivo_slide.xml (or anything .xml) and save it in the keymaps folder inside of the userdata folder. The file should look like this:

ParentDir PreviousMenu VolumeUp VolumeDown Yellow Yellow ActivateWindow(Videos,Files) ActivateWindow(Videos,TvShowTitles) ActivateWindow(Videos,MovieTitles) ActivateWindow(MusicFiles) <Home> </Home> <VirtualKeyboard> </VirtualKeyboard> <MyFiles> </MyFiles> <MyMusicPlaylist> </MyMusicPlaylist> <MyMusicPlaylistEditor> </MyMusicPlaylistEditor> <MyMusicFiles> </MyMusicFiles> <MyMusicLibrary> </MyMusicLibrary> <FullscreenVideo> SmallStepBack</prev_track> </FullscreenVideo> <VideoTimeSeek> </VideoTimeSeek> <FullscreenInfo> </FullscreenInfo> <PlayerControls> </PlayerControls> <Visualisation> </Visualisation> <MusicOSD> </MusicOSD> <VisualisationSettings> </VisualisationSettings> <VisualisationPresetList> </VisualisationPresetList> <SlideShow> </SlideShow> <ScreenCalibration> </ScreenCalibration> <GUICalibration> </GUICalibration> <SelectDialog> </SelectDialog> <VideoOSD> </VideoOSD> <VideoMenu> </VideoMenu> <OSDVideoSettings> </OSDVideoSettings> <OSDAudioSettings> </OSDAudioSettings> <VideoBookmarks> </VideoBookmarks> <MyVideoLibrary> ToggleWatched </MyVideoLibrary> <MyVideoFiles> ToggleWatched </MyVideoFiles> <MyVideoPlaylist> </MyVideoPlaylist> <ContextMenu> </ContextMenu> <FileStackingDialog> </FileStackingDialog> <Scripts> </Scripts> <Weather> </Weather> <Settings> </Settings> <MyPicturesSettings> </MyPicturesSettings> <MyProgramsSettings> </MyProgramsSettings> <MyWeatherSettings> </MyWeatherSettings> <MyMusicSettings> </MyMusicSettings> <SystemSettings> </SystemSettings> <MyVideosSettings> </MyVideosSettings> <NetworkSettings> </NetworkSettings> <AppearanceSettings> </AppearanceSettings> <Profiles> </Profiles> <MusicInformation> </MusicInformation> <MovieInformation> </MovieInformation> <AddonInformation> </AddonInformation> <AddonSettings> </AddonSettings> <LockSettings> </LockSettings> <ProfileSettings> </ProfileSettings> <PictureInfo> </PictureInfo> <Teletext> </Teletext> <Favourites> </Favourites>

= Configure the IR keys = Some of the keys can be programmed to send IR commands instead of using the USB dongle. For example, you can make it so the volume keys can change your TV's or AVR's volume instead of Kodi's internal volume control. For these instructions see the Tivo website:


 * Tivo instructions for IR code search
 * Tivo instructions for IR learning

= Issues =
 * There are four keys on the Slide Pro that were not recognized by linux until kernel 4.0. Earlier versions require a kernel patch. The four keys are:
 * Thumbs Up
 * Thumbs Down
 * Tivo (at the top)
 * Live TV


 * The Slide has no "Stop" button, and therefore neither does it's remote. You can either stop playback when is pressed, or use the "slow-mo" button, since Kodi doesn't have a slow-mo function.


 * The Slide has no "Menu" button, which Kodi would normally use to bring up the context menu. A good replacement for this is to use the button.