Keyboard mouse emulation on Shield

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Rikkitic

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#237599 9-Jun-2018 13:44

I have a 2017 Nvidia Shield I use for streaming. It no longer supports IR control but I use a Harmony IR remote through a FLIRC. The Harmony also controls other things, like the audio.

The Shield no longer has mouse functions through the remote but a USB mouse does work on it. I would like to program the Harmony to emulate a USB mouse via the FLIRC so I don’t have to use a separate device for mouse control. The FLIRC can be programmed with a command line utility to emulate Numpad keys, which can be used to control mouse movements on a Windows pc. Can anyone tell me if this can also be made to work on the Shield? Since the Shield responds to a USB mouse, Is there any way to generate mouse movements from a keyboard?

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#2032509 9-Jun-2018 13:50

For the odd occasion I've needed it, I just use a Logitech K400r keyboard that has a built in track pad.

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Rikkitic

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#2032536 9-Jun-2018 14:18

I can also just use an air mouse. The question is if there is a way to do this with the Harmony, which is my ecosystem.

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#2032566 9-Jun-2018 15:07

I also have a harmony remote. Can't type passwords very efficiently with a remote, so the keyboard is for that. Side bonus is it has a mouse, if I need one. Generally speaking there is no need for a mouse, most of the time, with the Shield\Android TV interface. You're obviously doing non-standard things with it, if you regularly need a mouse?

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#2032568 9-Jun-2018 15:26

People keep telling me that but it is not my experience. Many apps that otherwise work fine get stuck only because the Shield has no mouse function. I think getting rid of it was an extremely stupid and short-sighted decision. Even the Chrome Browser doesn't work correctly on it, again, because there is no mouse. Same with film sites like Crackle and Pluto. A $30 generic Android box isn't crippled this way and works fine. What value is being added by not having a mouse function? I really don't get it. If you have the mouse, you don't have to use it. If you don't have it, you're stuck. The Shield is unnecessarily restricted. I see complaints about this all over the forums. It is dumb and makes no sense.

Anyway, I didn't start this thread to rant about it yet again. I'm just trying to make my set-up as user-friendly as possible. At this time the Shield remote is fairly useless for me and the Harmony works for many things so I am trying to build my system around the Harmony. It works pretty well for nearly everything, except there is no keyboard equivalent for the Home function so I have to use the Shield remote for that and there is no mouse function so I have to use a USB keyboard for that. In other words, the brilliance of Shield design now requires me to use three remotes, where before I only needed one. Way to go Nvidia!

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#2032571 9-Jun-2018 15:32

But the Shield is not crippled. If you plug a mouse (or other such device) in, it works fine. Their remote doesn't support mouse control, by design.

In answer to your original question; I've never seen a way to have a Harmony remote emulate Android controls in any way. That's why I use the particular keyboard I mentioned above.

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#2032627 9-Jun-2018 16:57

And around and around we go. I understand the remote doesn't support mouse control by design. I just don't understand why. What would it hurt? It wouldn't make the remote much bigger, if at all. I know that because the remote for my other Android box is about the same size, and it does have mouse control. My own feeling (and that's all it is) is that this was done capriciously to try to force people to use Google's voice control, which also doesn't work very well for me.

Anyway, I have in fact succeeded in getting my Harmony to 'emulate' the Android controls, if by emulate you mean using the USB interface. This is what the FLIRC does. It receives the Harmony IR commands and translates them into USB keyboard commands just like your Logitech keyboard. The Shield does understand these but the commands it responds to are limited. So you can use mouse controls and a handful of keyboard commands but that is all. Since the Shield responds to mouse movements, and since it can be made to respond to numlock keys, I am thinking there might be a way to marry the two, just like Windows with its accessibility features. That is what my question is all about.

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#2032685 9-Jun-2018 18:06

Yes, absolutely, as the FLIRC is just the same thing as plugging in a keyboard/mouse, with the Harmony pulling it's strings, so the Harmony should be able to be made to do anything a keyboard\mouse can do, in theory. Not actually emulating anything android, but it is emulating the keyboard\mouse input.

Also have a look for an app called Mouse Toggle For Android TV in the Play Store, which I believe works with the Shield TV remote.

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