FLIRC

A user review of FLIRC

My name is Chris (or pseudo7 on the forums). I’ve been an XBMC user for about 3 years, firstly using my mac then using a shuttle box running Openelec (so I didn’t have to keep connecting/ disconnecting my MacBook Pro). I love XBMC: the application, the project and everything it envelops.

I have recently come across a product which has enhanced my XBMC experience, and wanted to give back to the community and share my findings about Flirc. Much like the Pulse8 articles that crop up from time-to-time, my intention is to highlight what I think is a great product that many users may not have heard about. As such this article treads the fine line between advertising and informing - it is not intended as an advert.

(Disclaimer - whilst I am “staff” on the FLIRC forums I am not employed by Flirc and do not benefit directly, financially or otherwise, from the project)

What is Flirc?

Flirc allows you to pair your same television remote to your computer with easy one time use set-up software.
Flirc is a small USB infra-red (I.R.) adapter that receives I.R. commands from a remote control.

Flirc is different from other I.R. adapters.

Conventionally, I.R. adapters require the computer to understand the I.R. commands, which is what LIRC is for. However, methods like LIRC require extensive knowledge should your remote control not be supported, which can be more frequently than expected, LIRC is not meant for the novice. (Not trying to bad mouth the hard work on remote support by XBMC dev - just my opinion) That's where flirc steps in. Flirc is detected as a USB keyboard, eliminating the need for XBMC special drivers. Any media center application that supports a keyboard as an input device, supports flirc out of the box.

Programming Flirc is easy to do, but ironically rather hard to explain so I’ve made a video:
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(Bonus points if you guess what the video playing in XBMC is)
Also there is a video by Flirc explaining the steps: http://vimeo.com/12542134

Flirc + XBMC = Happiness!

XBMC has many great functions, not being able to control them is a huge kick in the teeth.
You can control XBMC by keyboard using keyboard presses (http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Keyboard), so if your remote can do keyboard presses then you have loads more control.
Flirc sends keyboard presses to the computer... perfect non?
Flirc supports nearly every remote (see current Flirc limitations) and XBMC supports nearly every platform. So Flirc aims to make your remote work with your XBMC install on any computer that supports USB. Flirc is even supported on the xbox 360 after previously paired with a computer running windows, linux, or OSX.

Flirc can store 160 keys. The possibilities are great. For example, the off button on a remote could be mapped to the key combination Alt+F4.
After paired, when you press the off button on the remote, Flirc sends ALT+F4 to the computer.

Who Makes Flirc?

Flirc was set up by Jason Kotzin and his wife Maggie. It is a small company of which Jason is the only one coding for.
For more about them: http://www.flirc.tv/about_us/

Current Flirc Limitations

All young projects have their niggles, Flirc is no different.
Unfortunately, MCE remotes, which are quite prevalent amongst the XBMC users, don’t work as well as they should and are best avoided at the moment.
At a very basic level (which is my understanding of it) they emit non-standard I.R. frequencies (about 56Khz), standard frequency being 38Khz.
For more in-depth discussion on this issue please see these forum topics:
http://forum.flirc.tv/index.php?/topic/9-double-key-presses/page__view__findpost__p__514

This issue is being worked on, but new features for existing remotes are being added first.

The Golden Lining

A portion of every sale goes to the USC Cancer Research center that Jason's oncologists leads and where Jason underwent chemotherapy.
http://www.flirc.tv/fundraising/
Every sale of Flirc results in a donation to the charity.
As a result Flirc module is a proprietary piece of technology to ensure the charity continues to benefit from Jason’s hard work.
Jason would like to report back to XBMC users how much they have contributed to the charity, please use discount code XBMC when you purchase to allow him to track down XBMC purchases. You get the same discount as the other codes.

My XBMC Set-Up

(Complete with ghetto student look)

• Https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-SCJQHGqPpHU/Txxbfh5qW3I/AAAAAAAAEPk/vrnCpw3TGgo/s912/IMG 20120122 183947 1.jpg

and

• Https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-o9c80gvxTuE/Txxbf54bEfI/AAAAAAAAEPk/vrEFu2Fy8kI/s912/IMG 20120122 184235.jpg

Hopefully this has helped someone.

If you have any questions about Flirc there is a forum dedicated to it (forum.flirc.tv), post any requests, problems or thanks there for friendly help (i’m Chris! on the forums there).