Remotes for Windows 7 MC - IR, Bluetooth + Power the PC ON/OFF

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Remotes for Windows 7 MC - IR, Bluetooth + Power the PC ON/OFF

Mtbboy

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#92537 1-Nov-2011 08:16

There are discussions everywhere and I have spent hours reading but still can't find a solution.

I use a Harmony one IR remote to control and a Hauppauge USB receiver, and my wife is getting frustrated with this not working

My first problem is powering on and off. Too often this gets out of sync and turns the PC off when I try to turn it on. I have looked everywhere to find a way of sending discrete power on and off commands and have not found away of solving this. Does anybody know of a way of sending discrete on of commands froma Harmony remote to a Hauppauge IR receiver?
Is there another receiver that has discrete on of IR codes that works better?

Secondly on the topic of remotes I have been setting up a WMC PC for my dad however he wants a remote to work from 2 rooms. He has a Harmony universal remote already. Is the best way to do this getting an IR repeater? Is there not any good bluetooth remotes out there at a decent price. The only thing I have found so far is the Harmony 900, which seems a bit pricey at $400.
Any suggestions of IR repeaters you can get hold of easily and know are good would also be appreciated. (NZ local or easily obtainable on internet eg ebay)

Any good suggestions or links to good discussions that I may have missed would be much appreciated. Thanks !!!

Nety

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#539825 1-Nov-2011 11:05

Concerning your first issue I have handled it a different way. I have my MC set to sleep after 15mins of no activity. I have set Windows power options to ignore a shutdown request (do nothing). I have then set the Harmony to control turning the MC on and off. The result is that if the MC is off the power toggle turns it on from the Harmony but if it is on (recording or just not gone to sleep yet) then it ignores the power toggle command. Likewise when you tell the Harmony to turn every thing off the MC ignores the command and just goes to sleep itself after 15 mins.

For the second issue this MAY work for you. I brought one and the tech worked really well BUT in my case I just could not get it to play nice with my Harmony 670 remote. I had a very frustrating issue where it would just not turn on my amp correctly. But I did read plenty of forums where people had it working correctly. Also although there is a NZ distributor I found them way over priced and it was much cheaper to buy it in the US and bring it back so may be the best option for you too.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=NextGen+extender&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=10005129443362944488&sa=X&ei=2hqvTvXDJon2ggeJ3fjBAQ&ved=0CEYQ8wIwAQ

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Regs

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Snowflake

#540032 1-Nov-2011 20:01

you could also try configuring the macros to use the "green button" (menu button) to turn on the pc. I "believe" that this button will bring it out of standby without having to send the power toggle.

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Mtbboy

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#540039 1-Nov-2011 20:20

Hi Regs,
I thought that would be a good idea too, however it doesn't bring it out of standby. The only button on the Hauppauge remote that will wake the PC up is the power toggle button.

Regs

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Snowflake

#540072 1-Nov-2011 21:26

must be just my VFD/IR combo that works with the green button then... bummer!

btw. have you looked to see if there is anything programmable with the ir receiver?

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martyyn

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#540369 2-Nov-2011 15:12

Nety: Concerning your first issue I have handled it a different way. I have my MC set to sleep after 15mins of no activity. I have set Windows power options to ignore a shutdown request (do nothing). I have then set the Harmony to control turning the MC on and off. The result is that if the MC is off the power toggle turns it on from the Harmony but if it is on (recording or just not gone to sleep yet) then it ignores the power toggle command. Likewise when you tell the Harmony to turn every thing off the MC ignores the command and just goes to sleep itself after 15 mins.

Brilliant, I bought a Harmony remote last week and this suggestion has solved the last issue I had, thanks :)

All my equipment is hidden away and whilst the Harmony can somehow control the mysky behind the closed doors it cant do the amp. However the above made me think of having my IR server suite watch for a power off and send that through when I shutdown (ignoring the power off on the HTPC so it snoozes itself) but ignore the power up when starting and just having IR server suite start the amp up after its booted.

Mtbboy

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#540404 2-Nov-2011 17:28

Regs: must be just my VFD/IR combo that works with the green button then... bummer!

btw. have you looked to see if there is anything programmable with the ir receiver?

I did look for programming options but couldn't find out how to change any setting for the Hauppauge receiver.
I would be happy to reuse two of the coloured buttons (reg green yellow blue) and map these to a turn on and turn off command, but haven't found out how to do this.

Mtbboy

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#540405 2-Nov-2011 17:31

Concerning your first issue I have handled it a different way. I have my MC set to sleep after 15mins of no activity. I have set Windows power options to ignore a shutdown request (do nothing). I have then set the Harmony to control turning the MC on and off. The result is that if the MC is off the power toggle turns it on from the Harmony but if it is on (recording or just not gone to sleep yet) then it ignores the power toggle command. Likewise when you tell the Harmony to turn every thing off the MC ignores the command and just goes to sleep itself after 15 mins.

Hi Nety, That sounds like a good idea. How did you change the PC to not turn off, because you would still want MC to stop watching TV in order to get to an idle state and shut itself down after 15 mins of no activity. if nothing happened then it would not shut down. Did you change the power off command sent from the remote to send a different command like stop etc?
How did you actually achieve this and where did you change the setting?
Thanks for your help

sbiddle

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#540419 2-Nov-2011 18:20

Just buy a Firefly remote.

Nety

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#540551 3-Nov-2011 06:33

Mtbboy:
Hi Nety, That sounds like a good idea. How did you change the PC to not turn off, because you would still want MC to stop watching TV in order to get to an idle state and shut itself down after 15 mins of no activity. if nothing happened then it would not shut down. Did you change the power off command sent from the remote to send a different command like stop etc?
How did you actually achieve this and where did you change the setting?
Thanks for your help

Under advanced power settings in the control panel I set both options under power button and lid, Power button and Sleep button, to Do nothing. That stops the shut down command from working.
So that live TV or watching a video etc. does not keep the MC awake I just added a Stop command to the "before devices are turned off" under the Logitech activity for the MC.