Chowmain - Android TV driver (Chromecast with Google TV, Xiaomi Mibox, Airtv, Nvidia Shield, etc)

Want to control the Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast with Google TV, Nvidia Shield, Xiaomi Mibox, AirTV and more? The Chowmain Android TV driver is designed to control Google Android TV boxes. It is a software only solution so no extra hardware required. This allows you to utilise the Control4 Neeo or SR-260 remote to navigate the Android operating system and control applications as you would with a normal infra red remote control. No need to root the device and no need to install any additional hardware.

Add to this the ability to launch applications via the Apps driver (which lists all installed apps), via mini drivers for individual apps (for the most popular applications), via coloured buttons and also programmatically.

This driver requires a 3rd party application called Zank Remote be installed and configured on your android device. Just install the app from play store and follow the instructions to configure the Android TV box. We partnered with the developer of Zank to further develop their app to provide the functionality we require for integration. Note a portion of licencing revenue goes towards our partners at Zank to support the Zank app development.

Features

• IP Based communications
• Auto Discovery of Box
• Transport Controls
• Playback Control
• Audio End-Point assignment for volume funcitonality
• Video End-Point assignment
• Launch applications from coloured buttons
• Launch applications from navigator (under the apps icon)
• Application Mini drivers can be connected for quick launching.

FAQ

What hardware will this work on?

• AirTV
• Amazon Fire TV
• Chromecast with Google TV
• Nvidia Shield
• Xiaomi MiBox
• Other Google / Android TV Boxes

What cool things can i do with this?

• No need for extra hardware? Just buy the android tv device!
• Will list all of your apps under the Android Apps driver. Select your app for quick launch.
• Allows you to bind android mini drivers for quick launch under watch or listen.

I purchased an older version of the driver. How do i upgrade?
Good news. Existing Android customers get a FREE upgrade. Just use the existing licence on the new driver. Note due to the major update/new features you will need to delete the older driver and add in this new driver.

How do i use it just for launching applications on my tablet?
Simple. Just set up the driver but not connect any of the AV connections. All programming commands will still work.

How do I find out more information about the driver?
Please see the links below for more information about the driver.

Chowmain Website

How do I buy the driver?
This driver can be purchased from our distributor driverCentral.

Download Driver / Purchase Licence

Do you provide trial licences?
All Chowmain drivers for Control4 come with a 90 day trial.

Who do i contact for technical support?
We have two support desks. One in Australia and one in the US. Click on the link below for details.

Support

Been testing this driver and it's awesome. Highly recommend. 

Is this just for boxes, or does it work for Android TVs as well - thinking specially of TCL Televisions which are Android TVs in Aus / NZ rather than the Roku you see in the US.

26 minutes ago, enzeder said:

Is this just for boxes, or does it work for Android TVs as well - thinking specially of TCL Televisions which are Android TVs in Aus / NZ rather than the Roku you see in the US.

Actually it does work on android TVs to an extent.   We tested it on a Kogan android tv with some success.

it won’t control the TV portion of it.  Eg power, inputs, etc but it will control the android side.

personally I wouldn’t use it for this reason.

@alanchow

How about long press?

This is great new, I had this driver for over a year now and couldn't use it except over cheap Chinees shity Android boxes as I couldn't root the Xiaomi Boxes, Now I will ditch Android boxes and IRSUB as well!  Thanks Alan for getting this driver worth the money  

18 hours ago, alanchow said:

Chowmain - Android TV driver (Chromecast with Google TV, Xiaomi Mibox, Airtv, Nvidia Shield, etc)

Want to control the Chromecast with Google TV, Nvidia Shield, Xiaomi Mibox, AirTV and more? The Chowmain Android TV driver is designed to control Google Android TV boxes. It is a software only solution so no extra hardware required. This allows you to utilise the Control4 Neeo or SR-260 remote to navigate the Android operating system and control applications as you would with a normal infra red remote control. No need to root the device and no need to install any additional hardware.

Add to this the ability to launch applications via the Apps driver (which lists all installed apps), via mini drivers for individual apps (for the most popular applications), via coloured buttons and also programmatically.

This driver requires a 3rd party application called Zank Remote be installed and configured on your android device. Just install the app from play store and follow the instructions to configure the Android TV box. We partnered with the developer of Zank to further develop their app to provide the functionality we require for integration. Note a portion of licencing revenue goes towards our partners at Zank to support the Zank app development.

Features

• IP Based communications
• Auto Discovery of Box
• Transport Controls
• Playback Control
• Audio End-Point assignment for volume funcitonality
• Video End-Point assignment
• Launch applications from coloured buttons
• Launch applications from navigator (under the apps icon)
• Application Mini drivers can be connected for quick launching.

FAQ

What hardware will this work on?
 

• AirTV
• Chromecast with Google TV
• Nvidia Shield
• Xiaomi MiBox
• Other Google / Android TV Boxes

What cool things can i do with this?
 

• No need for extra hardware? Just buy the android tv device!
• Will list all of your apps under the Android Apps driver. Select your app for quick launch.
• Allows you to bind android mini drivers for quick launch under watch or listen.

I purchased an older version of the driver. How do i upgrade?
Good news. Existing Android customers get a FREE upgrade. Just use the existing licence on the new driver. Note due to the major update/new features you will need to delete the older driver and add in this new driver.

How do i use it just for launching applications on my tablet?
Simple. Just set up the driver but not connect any of the AV connections. All programming commands will still work.

Do you recommend this over the Videostorm IRUSB solution?
This is a great alternative to the Videostorm IRUSB solution. It will provide you with similar functionality with the only difference being speed. If you require snappyness the the IRUSB solution is still our go to solution.

How do I find out more information about the driver?
Please see the links below for more information about the driver.

Chowmain Website

How do I buy the driver?
This driver can be purchased from our distributor driverCentral.

Download Driver / Purchase Licence

Do you provide trial licences?
All Chowmain drivers for Control4 come with a 90 day trial.

Who do i contact for technical support?
We have two support desks. One in Australia and one in the US. Click on the link below for details.

Support

One Questions, if I turn on the USB ADB debugging on my Xiaomi box, will I loose LAN and I have to use Xiaomi over WiFi?

4 minutes ago, Amr said:

One Questions, if I turn on the USB ADB debugging on my Xiaomi box, will I loose LAN and I have to use Xiaomi over WiFi?

No

Can't wait to use this!

Thanks @alanchow

Muj

24 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

No

Well .... I just lost ethernet, whatever I do is not working, it use to work with IRSUB, now I don't have ethernet and it asks me to switch to WiFI?

5 minutes ago, Amr said:

Well .... I just lost ethernet, whatever I do is not working, it use to work with IRSUB, now I don't have ethernet and it asks me to switch to WiFI?

I did not see that in my testing...

So What are you using for testing, am using MiBox4 with Ugreen Ethernet adapter, used to work fine with IRSUB and now its not, during boot it connects fine to ethernet, then it dead and reports no Ethernet connection?

Let me do some more testing of that scenario! I'll let you know. 

2 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

Let me do some more testing of that scenario! I'll let you know. 

Thanks, am using WiFi and its not great and smooth, reminds me with FireTV awful ADB ... Hehehe

16 hours ago, Kaas Mayer said:

@alanchow

How about long press?

I have now implemented the the android MENU command into the driver.  This is mapped to the INFO button and provides the same functionality as long pressing the center button.

3 hours ago, Amr said:

This is great new, I had this driver for over a year now and couldn't use it except over cheap Chinees shity Android boxes as I couldn't root the Xiaomi Boxes, Now I will ditch Android boxes and IRSUB as well!  Thanks Alan for getting this driver worth the money  

 

1 hour ago, Amr said:

Thanks, am using WiFi and its not great and smooth, reminds me with FireTV awful ADB ... Hehehe

IRUSB is still the fastest method of control if speed is an issue.  You can also try changing the Control Method in the driver's properties to Zank Default.  This will be faster but doesn't work with every app.  The Zank developer mentioned to me that this is because some apps utilise a webview for their app and the controls don't pass through.

1 hour ago, Amr said:

Well .... I just lost ethernet, whatever I do is not working, it use to work with IRSUB, now I don't have ethernet and it asks me to switch to WiFI?

I am using the Chromecast with Google TV + their OEM ethernet adapter without any issueshttps://store.google.com/au/product/chromecast_ethernet_adapter_gen_2

 

17 hours ago, alanchow said:

Actually it does work on android TVs to an extent.   We tested it on a Kogan android tv with some success.

it won’t control the TV portion of it.  Eg power, inputs, etc but it will control the android side.

personally I wouldn’t use it for this reason.

 

I take that back.  Looking at the Google APIs it looks like i can do power and inputs.  I expect power on won't work though so hopefully a wake on lan packet or something similar does.  I'll do some testing on the kogan android tv we have in the office. @enzedercan you please tell me if a wake on lan packet turns your tv on?

Nope, didn't turn it on. Although it does turn on if I cast to it.

I also tried my Sony KD-65A1 and that didn't work either

 

29 minutes ago, enzeder said:

Nope, didn't turn it on. Although it does turn on if I cast to it.

I also tried my Sony KD-65A1 and that didn't work either

 

Thanks for advising.  Might not be a viable solution if we can't turn it on via WOL.

Am back to IrSUB Chowmain driver with Xiaomi boxes and will not look back, its only a cable that is thrown in the closet and not really a big deal, it have an IR Bug as well that might be useful one day, who knows ...  Its OCD that drive me nuts to reduce clutter with as neat as possible setup but I keep forgetting if it works don't touch rule ...

We have worked with the Zank developer and the app now works with Amazon Fire TV boxes (at fast speeds too).

You can download Zank for Amazon via the link below.

https://www.amazon.com/Zank-Remote-Fire-TV/dp/B0922YB1BT

Hello, my installer put on IRUSB for me originally, but it crashed a few times over the week I was playing around with it. In addition, my power went off a few times, so the 5 minute reloading was a pain.

 

They put on the google driver today in a few of my rooms. I gave the okay after playing with it for like 20 seconds, but once I really sat down at the end of the day, I am having regrets. The delay between pressing a button and having the action do something is pretty bad.  Is there something that they were doing wrong that was causing such a delay? Is this a normal occurrence? 

7 hours ago, zg825 said:

Hello, my installer put on IRUSB for me originally, but it crashed a few times over the week I was playing around with it. In addition, my power went off a few times, so the 5 minute reloading was a pain.

 

They put on the google driver today in a few of my rooms. I gave the okay after playing with it for like 20 seconds, but once I really sat down at the end of the day, I am having regrets. The delay between pressing a button and having the action do something is pretty bad.  Is there something that they were doing wrong that was causing such a delay? Is this a normal occurrence? 

Ask them if they use the ADB method in the driver. That will be faster

Okay thanks, I’ll ask them today when I talk to them.  I know the least painful way is to go to roku but google tv UI is pretty awesome. 
 

Would you recommend to go the irusb route vs driver? I can’t imagine anyone would use the driver with how slow the reaction time is on a daily basis. 

2 hours ago, zg825 said:

Okay thanks, I’ll ask them today when I talk to them.  I know the least painful way is to go to roku but google tv UI is pretty awesome. 
 

Would you recommend to go the irusb route vs driver? I can’t imagine anyone would use the driver with how slow the reaction time is on a daily basis. 

Roku has 2 consistent problems for me I can’t fix or have to redo one of them every month or so, beside the awful UI it’s always producing HDCP error, makes them useless, I have to reboot it and my HDMI matrix for this to clear.

MAJOR UPDATE

Introduced a new control method 'Zank Default Advanced'.  This mode is 2.5x faster than the normal zank default & adb based controls.  it will also work on all apps!   Note that this requires that you update the Zank Remote Android TV app to the latest (12.0D version and above) and also set the control method in the driver to 'Zank Default (Advanced)' in the driver's properties.  New installations have this set by default.

This new upgrade makes our Google Android TV upgrade the best solution for android tv control!

Anyone tested this on a Formuler GTV box?