Bluetooth Remote Control profiles

[mysh]

Hi all. One of the main reasons i've kept using SE phones since i first got a t610 a few years ago, are the bluetooth remote controls you can use on them.

If you're not familiar with them, it works like this. You need a bluetooth adaptor for your PC to use them. The profiles map keys on the phone to keys on your computer keyboard, or the mouse (including mouse movement). Essentially you can use the phone to replicate your keyboard and mouse. Generally you create a profile for each program you want to control remotely, as they all use different keyboard shortcuts.

If you're like me and you have your PC wired up to your home stereo and tv system, these remotes on SE phones are brilliant. Basically you can controls your tunes and dvds using your phone.

When i first got my w900i, i set up some basic remote controls for winamp and mediaplayer, like i had on my s700i previously (using this software). Trouble is they all used the default image so i never knew which remote was loaded on my phone, and my friends had no idea what each key on the phone controlled. So yesterday i made some proper remote control profiles that anyone can use and understand.

They're designed for my w900i, but they should work on any SE phone. They all work using the jogdial/joystick for each application in the same way the SE walkman player does. Likewise the phone's volume keys control volume. The left and right softkeys are bound to custom commands, like toggling winamp visualisations, stopping playback, muting the sound, etc. Best of all they're all set up so you don't need to open the phone to use them.

Here's an example image, my itunes remote...



currently i've made remotes for itunes, windows media player, winamp, bsplayer, and counter-strike. The last one is great for messing with people's heads, hehe.

you can download them all from my w900i site, here:

http://www.vapulus.com/w900i/bluetooth.html

Some require you to set extra shortcuts in the application's preferences for some functions to work, so read the respective notes when you download. The itunes and mediaplayer remotes both only use default shortcuts however.

If anyone has any requests (eg. remotes for powerdvd or whatever you use), that's fine, as it only takes 5 mins to make a new remote control image and set the .hid profile up. So just post or pm me about it.

[christomapher]

Awesome job mister! I have made HIDs as well for my K750 and K700, but never went as far as making some for counter strike haha. I am going to try them out and let you know what I think. I already have the Sony Ericsson versions for: iTunes, Media Player, Presenter and Desktop. I am going to try yours out now.

[christomapher]

Hmm the iTunes HID made my compute go crazy by scrolling up and down through my songs, making the mouse go wacky... it just randomy spazzed out and statred moving all over the place. When I tried the volume side keys... if I pressed up, the volume would go ALL the way up, and same with down, ALL the way down, no in between. Mute really messed up my volume settings because if I tried unmuting it, it wouldnt work. I had to take my mouse and adjust iTunes' volume control manually... hmmm. Weird! I have a K750i btw, running the most updated version of XP.

[mysh]

I have to admit, i don't personally use itunes for my music playback, i'm a winamp chap.

I have it installed though, because i use it's AAC encoder to convert mp3s for my phone (it's better quality than nero). So just i loaded it up and read the keyboard shortcuts from the menus in it to make that profile. I'll test it out now...

Ok all the functions seem to work fine on my w900i. I also checked in SE's remote control editor that the buttons map to the k750 the same as with the w900i, and they do. But i am getting some minor random events. It seems any shortcut involving UP and DOWN keyboard keys makes the highlighted song change now and then. That has no effect on playback though, it's just slightly odd...

Ok i just recreated the hid profile to be double sure it wasn't a mistake i'd made, and i get the same effect still. It seems itunes handles keyboard commands from the bluetooth HID device badly, it lags and misses keys. I just hammered the crap out of it with rapid button presses, here's the only problems i've found:

- jog dial left (previous chapter command) will sometimes stop playback or go back a song. Jog dial left and right are only really any use for DVDs so just don't use them otherwise.

-volume up and down will sometimes move the song focus on your playlist (about 1 in 3 chance), it won't actually change the song though. It seems sometimes itunes only registers the UP or DOWN key, and not the CTRL key also. Itunes volume shortcuts are CTRL + UP / DOWN btw.

I can't reproduce your problems with the mute key, mine works fine, albeit slightly lagged by a second or so when un-muting again. It doesn't move the volume slider at all, it just toggles the mute icons next to it.

Likewise the visualisation key toggles the visuals fine too.

I can't recreate this problem with bsplayer, or winamp, or WMP, so it's safe to say it's just itunes that's affected, it must handle keyboard input differently i guess.

Anyway a couple of tips for itunes and all the profiles: don't hold down any buttons, just tap them, especially the volume ones. Also don't attempt to do two things at once, like change song with the jog dial up / down whilst turning on the visualisations or muting, do it in sequence one after the other instead. That really did make my itunes go crazy otherwise!

suggest you redownload the itunes HID profile from my site anyway though, as i've just uploaded this double checked version, and it has the name of the profile fixed too.

sorry i couldn't be more help, i think it's an itunes / bluetooth combo problem, which probably hasn't come up before. Using the actual keyboard shortcuts on the keyboard itself doesn't produce the same problems, it's definitely how the bluetooth translates keypresses that itunes has a fit over.

EDIT:

Man this became a long post. Anyway i just realised how dense i'm being, itunes freaks out because the bluetooth keypresses are too precise. I'll explain. When you hold down CTRL in itunes, the playlist and visualisation icons change, and this delays the program registering what we'll call "CTRL mode" for the other keys (UP and DOWN for the volume). Only by a few miliseconds. When you manually use the keyboard shortcuts, you naturally hold down CTRL before hitting UP or DOWN, so the little pause it takes when you hit CTRL doesn't matter. But when the bluetooth remote does it, it issues both key presses instantly, so that few miliseconds itunes takes to go into "CTRL mode" means there's a few miliseconds where it thinks only UP or DOWN is pressed alone, and we get the focus change on the playlist.

so there's the problem.

You could always email apple about it, but i doubt they'd look into fixing keypress latency and rewriting code for the sake of a few bluetooth users. It's getting late here in the UK, so i'll look into ways around this through the HID profile itself tomorrow, and post back here. Unfortunately itunes won't let you remap keyboard shortcuts, that'd be the easiest fix by far.

[christomapher]

I made a version for iTunes myself as well back in the day, and had weird issues like that as well. I only tap the buttons, never hold them. Luckily, SE's version of the iTunes remote works very well. Cool stuff though. The rest of the programs you made them for, I don't use heh.

[mysh]

Just updated my post while you were replying, read up

got the problem sussed out, just need to find a solution now.

[DS]

looks interesting.. but how do you install them to use them? do you just bt the .hid file over to the phone and it installs itself into the remote control menu? nice work though

edit: i just object pushed them to the phone and it worked so that answers my question lol

also, the remote works well with the k750, however the left and right fastforward/rewind keys dont work.. but other than that its great.. good job on this

[mai9]

hi, can somebody tell me how to install those self-created .hid profiles? nothing happened when I sent the file ove bluetooth with this program.

ok, I found how to 'push' the .hid (as the previous post said), isn't there another way to install them?

[Boris]

Can you make one for Creative Media Player?

[mysh]

Mai9 read the webpage, you can install them by copying them to the Other folder on your memstick or phone using the usb cable, then selecting them in the phone's file manager.

Boris i'll take a look at creative media player in a few.

Edit: creative media player is a hardware device like the ipod video?! i can't find any software called creative media player, but link me to it if it is.

[mai9]

Mai9 read the webpage, you can install them by copying them to the Other folder on your memstick or phone using the usb cable, then selecting them in the phone's file manager.

you're right that I didn't read that piece of information on that wepage, althought I have to say that I tried copying the file on the other folder on the Memory Stick (before posting) and it didn't work, in fact, I've done it again and I don't see how I can use that .hid profile. The buttons only show me options to send the file by email/bluetooth/infrared, I can't find anything on the other button "More".

from the webpage:

to install either just send them to your phone via bluetooth, or by putting them in the Other folder and then selecting them in the phone's file manager.

I do select it but nothing happens.

PD: I have to say that I am not that newbie, but I can't find how to do it.

[mysh]

You know, i just checked, and you're right, copying to the mem stick won't let you install it. I could've swore it worked on my old s700i. my bad.

At least with my w900i, seems the only way to make it install is to send it via bluetooth to the phone. Assuming you have a pc to remote control, send it via bluetooth to the phone from the pc. I expect sending it to the phone from another phone via bluetooth will also work.

Time to edit that webpage!

[Boris]

Mai9 read the webpage, you can install them by copying them to the Other folder on your memstick or phone using the usb cable, then selecting them in the phone's file manager.

Boris i'll take a look at creative media player in a few.

Edit: creative media player is a hardware device like the ipod video?! i can't find any software called creative media player, but link me to it if it is.

You may be right. Creative Media Player comes with Creative Labs soundcards. So I guess you can't make one then.

[mysh]

I can still make one, just post the shortcut keys for the main functions, like play, pause, forward, back, volume up and down.

[mai9]

I made my first .hid profile. I use it to control the music player Foobar2000 with my W800. It isn't as responsive as I'd like, but it works

I made myself the image, it's a photo of the keypad and I draw the function of every button on it.



SE's software says I could also set a function on the camara button, but I couldn't, what's wrong?

I posted the .hid on my blog (in english) with a table on how to configure Foobar with the .hid posted (I also included my foobar.cfg file). Foobar2000 has configurable global shortcuts and I used strange combinations like Ctrl+Win+6 so I can always control the player not matter what I am doing with the computer (like writing this post )

In the rar I also added the previous image with no blue letters so anybody can use it.