C4 driver for nVidia Shield

[lippavisual]

Always get the same message.  Hit OK and you'll be fine

[videostorm]

Ok, that looks like an issue with the USB descriptor itself.   Something must have changed in the Shield OS wrt this.  We will look into it.

[eggzlot]

1 hour ago, Pounce said:

 

Ok, I reset the shield then installed the app. I got this when I selected update firmware.

 

Thanks.  Was too busy to update mine but same messy font 

[elee532]

3 hours ago, Pounce said:

 

Ok, I reset the shield then installed the app. I got this when I selected update firmware.

 

I've seen that same message on my 2019 Shield.

[elee532]

 

On 6/28/2020 at 2:30 PM, videostorm said:

Out of curiosity, what would you use? 

What about a screen that says something instructional for the non techie? Family members have powered on to find this screen after an unplanned reboot, and had no idea what to do. Maybe something like "Irusb successfully launched to control your Nvidia Shield. Press the Menu button to go back to the Shield home screen."

[Eric Stiff]

11 minutes ago, elee532 said:

 

What about a screen that says something instructional for the non techie? Family members have powered on to find this screen after an unplanned reboot, and had no idea what to do. Maybe something like "Irusb successfully launched to control your Nvidia Shield. Press the Menu button to go back to the Shield home screen."

I'm doing custom programming along with a contact sensor through one of the relays on mine to detect a loss of power. It checks the relay state once a day in the early AM and also when the project loads at controller boot up. When it determines power has been lost because the really is now open, there is a 15 minute delay to make sure everything is booted and settled, a cancel command is sent, then a home command, then a sleep command.

[Eric Stiff]

Just now, Eric Stiff said:

I'm doing custom programming along with a contact sensor through one of the relays on mine to detect a loss of power. It checks the relay state once a day in the early AM and also when the project loads at controller boot up. When it determines power has been lost because the really is now open, there is a 15 minute delay to make sure everything is booted and settled, a cancel command is sent, then a home command, then a sleep command.

This is also why I wish the Sleep state was a checkable status on the Shield. Currently Power On or Power Off are the only states listed and when it's "sleeping" it still registers as "On." This may be a limitation of Android itself and something @videostorm doesn't have any ability to work with.

[elee532]

On 6/27/2020 at 1:08 PM, videostorm said:

Yes, our free driver (on our web site) supports this.  Make sure you are using the latest driver and IRUSB firmware.

Hi again @videostorm. It seems when I 'Long Press' the Select button on my SR260, it's still only sending a short press command. I have confirmed in Composer HE that 'Press Hold' is set to  "Long Press." FW is V225. Is this the latest? How do I know whether that I have the latest driver? Anything else I should check?

Thanks!!

[videostorm]

1 hour ago, elee532 said:

Hi again @videostorm. It seems when I 'Long Press' the Select button on my SR260, it's still only sending a short press command. I have confirmed in Composer HE that 'Press Hold' is set to  "Long Press." FW is V225. Is this the latest? How do I know whether that I have the latest driver? Anything else I should check?

Thanks!!

The C4 remote itself only issues Key START / Key STOP commands for certain keys.  Everything else is a simple key "press" command regardless of how long you hold it.  The ones with START/STOP are directional keys, scan fwd/rev, and volume.

You can send other long press keys via the programming commands on our driver.

[elee532]

I'm confused. In this post, you indicated a LONG PRESS of the SELECT button is possible with the SR260 remote. Hopefully I am misunderstanding the latest post? Can you clarify? Thanks!

[elee532]

On 6/27/2020 at 9:28 AM, elee532 said:

@videostorm (or someone), can you confirm that this driver supports a LONG PRESS on the SR260's SELECT button? I'm currently using the Chowmain driver, but there is no way for me to get the Context menu in Kodi. I just want to be certain before I pay to my have my dealer to change drivers. Thank you!

 

On 6/27/2020 at 1:08 PM, videostorm said:

Yes, our free driver (on our web site) supports this.  Make sure you are using the latest driver and IRUSB firmware.

 

[videostorm]

Sorry for the confusion.  Long Press of select / enter is definitely supported as a key function our driver can send.  But AFAIK, you have to map this function to another button on your SR260 remote (red, green, etc).

This is because the C4 remote does not send a Start enter / Stop enter style command via the Lua API.  If they add this a some point, it would allow our driver to differentiate short and long press on that button.  IMO they likely won't do this because short/long press is more like a "hack" in Android to get more functions on remotes with very few keys.  A C4 remote has plenty of keys, so functions can be fully defined.  Press-hold on enter doesn't make logical sense....

Currently C4 sends Start X / Stop X commands on direction keys, scan fwd/rev, and volume.  Our driver supports these directly without additional programming.

[elee532]

On 7/17/2020 at 9:48 AM, videostorm said:

Sorry for the confusion.  Long Press of select / enter is definitely supported as a key function our driver can send.  But AFAIK, you have to map this function to another button on your SR260 remote (red, green, etc).

This is because the C4 remote does not send a Start enter / Stop enter style command via the Lua API.  If they add this a some point, it would allow our driver to differentiate short and long press on that button.  IMO they likely won't do this because short/long press is more like a "hack" in Android to get more functions on remotes with very few keys.  A C4 remote has plenty of keys, so functions can be fully defined.  Press-hold on enter doesn't make logical sense....

Currently C4 sends Start X / Stop X commands on direction keys, scan fwd/rev, and volume.  Our driver supports these directly without additional programming.

Thanks for clarifying. It's not was I was hoping for, but I at least see options in your driver properties to assign LONG PRESS SELECT to various other keys. It would be nice if C4 supported this, but I guess I can understand why it wouldn't be a priority for them. I think assigning the Shield's 'Home screen' command to the SR260's 'Guide' button and 'Long Press Select' to 'Menu' button feels the most intuitive to me.

For anyone else wondering, this ability to assign Long Press Select, plus the ability to assign Shield commands and mini-apps to the color buttons, plus the ability to add 4 custom apps are differences that I see between the Videostorm and Chowmain drivers. On the other hand, I also understand that the Chowmain driver offers some functionality not available in the Videostorm driver. So, choose wisely.

[WhyPhy]

On 6/29/2020 at 10:07 PM, elee532 said:

What about a screen that says something instructional for the non techie? Family members have powered on to find this screen after an unplanned reboot, and had no idea what to do. Maybe something like "Irusb successfully launched to control your Nvidia Shield. Press the Menu button to go back to the Shield home screen."

The "attractive, user-friendly splash screen" is a great suggestion. The existing splash screen is pure confusion for end users. It makes it look like the device has been hacked by ad-ware. It should look like specialized control software the user paid to have installed by a smart home professional.

[videostorm]

3 hours ago, WhyPhy said:

The "attractive, user-friendly splash screen" is a great suggestion. The existing splash screen is pure confusion for end users. It makes it look like the device has been hacked by ad-ware. It should look like specialized control software the user paid to have installed by a smart home professional.

Just take the extra 1 minute to install our NetPlayTV and/or SplashTiles app.  Then your screen looks like this

 

[WhyPhy]

3 hours ago, videostorm said:

Just take the extra 1 minute to install our NetPlayTV and/or SplashTiles app.  Then your screen looks like this

 

That is a slight improvement, but it still doesn't make sense to the average user who has no idea what IRUSB is; they don't even know they are using IRUSB. They just want to turn on the TV and watch something.

Also, I don't see why additional Netplay TV/SplashTiles apps should be installed just to change the default screen to something slightly less confusing; extra apps create even more potential for end-user confusion. This doesn't really match the intent of Control4 being a professional installer level solution.

[msgreenf]

5 minutes ago, WhyPhy said:

unneeded apps have to be installed

if you think its unneeded, then try using IRUSB without it...

[Eric Stiff]

4 hours ago, WhyPhy said:

The "attractive, user-friendly splash screen" is a great suggestion. The existing splash screen is pure confusion for end users. It makes it look like the device has been hacked by ad-ware. It should look like specialized control software the user paid to have installed by a smart home professional.

Precisely why as a smart home professional I use custom programming to take care of such issues. 

[WhyPhy]

1 hour ago, msgreenf said:

if you think its unneeded, then try using IRUSB without it...

Why do I need the NetPlayTV and/or SplashTiles apps to use IRUSB?

[msgreenf]

You can use any of video storm apps. You can also just use the Irusb app

[WhyPhy]

Yeah, but the other video storm apps are for distributed video and digital signs, which are not features that would ever be used if you're just after IP remote control.

BTW, the IRUSB hardware without the IRUSB app is a disaster. The dongle makes the Android TV unusable due to continually sending button presses every 2 minutes that cause apps to continually exit. Who thought that was a good idea?

[videostorm]

4 hours ago, WhyPhy said:

Yeah, but the other video storm apps are for distributed video and digital signs, which are not features that would ever be used if you're just after IP remote control.

BTW, the IRUSB hardware without the IRUSB app is a disaster. The dongle makes the Android TV unusable due to continually sending button presses every 2 minutes that cause apps to continually exit. Who thought that was a good idea?

For the sake of clarity:

1. You MUST use the IRUSB app with the IRUSB hardware.  This is for purely technical reasons.  Trust me, if we didn't need to spend the time / money to develop the app we wouldn't have.  This app is FREE (so is our advanced C4 driver, BTW).  
2. When the app auto launches on boot, we MUST display a full screen page to the user  (for technical and security reasons).
3. You have the OPTION to load our other apps on the device to change what the full screen boot page says.  Those apps are also FREE.  We don't care if you actually use them, but we do this to increase awareness of our other products.  We obviously aren't doing this just to sell a $39 dongle.  However, our other apps are excellent for home automation projects and do have free options (now with zero ads) as well so you might want to actually check them out.  (Their C4 drivers are also free).

Finally, SplashTiles makes a super powerful custom screen saver for your Shield.  That is why we let IRUSB users know about it.  It's a nice feature which is free for home use.

[WhyPhy]

13 hours ago, videostorm said:

For the sake of clarity:

1. You MUST use the IRUSB app with the IRUSB hardware.  This is for purely technical reasons.  Trust me, if we didn't need to spend the time / money to develop the app we wouldn't have.  This app is FREE (so is our advanced C4 driver, BTW).  
2. When the app auto launches on boot, we MUST display a full screen page to the user  (for technical and security reasons).
3. You have the OPTION to load our other apps on the device to change what the full screen boot page says.  Those apps are also FREE.  We don't care if you actually use them, but we do this to increase awareness of our other products.  We obviously aren't doing this just to sell a $39 dongle.  However, our other apps are excellent for home automation projects and do have free options (now with zero ads) as well so you might want to actually check them out.  (Their C4 drivers are also free).

Finally, SplashTiles makes a super powerful custom screen saver for your Shield.  That is why we let IRUSB users know about it.  It's a nice feature which is free for home use.

1. I understand that the IRUSB app is required for the IRUSB hardware to function. It's an Android limitation. That was never in question.
2. I don't understand why the IRUSB hardware continuously sends key commands that make the Android host device unusable before the IRUSB app is installed. I also don't understand why there aren't better instructions the the box stating "Do not install IRUSB hardware until IRUSB app has been installed from app store. Android device will not function properly if IRUSB hardware in installed without IRUSB app first being installed." Better yet, the hardware should ship with firmware that doesn't cause the "ghost remote key press" issue. The first priority should be "do no harm."
3. I understand why the IRUSB app auto-launches and why it must display a full-screen page. It's an Android limitation. That was never in question.
4. I don't understand why IRUSB app chooses to show such a user-unfriendly splash screen when it auto-launches.
   1. A user-first approach would be "Dear user, we're sorry this splash screen is interrupting your experience, but it's required for your device to interface with your remote control and home automation system. You can now press the back button to return to the main screen. (Oh, and if you'd like to learn more about our other products, please click here.)"
   2. A user-unfriendly approach would be "There's no obvious reason why the screen is being displayed, so let's take this chance to show some ads that makes things more confusing."

Let me give an example of how this experience manifested itself last night. It was completely unplanned because it was the first time the Shield has been rebooted since installing IRUSB, but it demonstrates how the user experience could be better.

• I start watching a TV show on Plex with my wife and daughter. About 30 minutes in, a Plex error message pops up. Rebooting is generally the universal fix, so I show my wife and daughter how to do that if it ever happens again and I'm not around. 
• I reboot from the Shield menu using the the Shield remote
• Device reboots, I open Plex, we resume watching the show
• A few minutes later, the IRUSB pop-up screen happens
• 
• Before I can say or do anything, the comments start flying:
  • Daughter: "What just happened? Dad, I think you need to reboot again."
  • Wife: "It looks like a 4th grader made a powerpoint"
  • Daughter: "It has 2 exclamation points, so I'm definitely going to buy it."
  • Wife: "Why is there are a 'VS' in the corner? Are two people getting ready to fight each other like in that old video game?"
  • Me: "Sorry, this is happens a few minutes after a reboot. I could explain why but you don't care. Just ignore it and exit back to Plex."
• If I hadn't been there, my daughter probably would have pushed buttons until things returned to normal, but my wife would have called me and asked what to do to make sure she didn't mess anything up.

Please don't misinterpret the intent of my comments. The purpose is to highlight ways to improve the customer experience to make the product more user-friendly and desirable. It's difficult to develop hardware, software, and a great user experience. This is constructive feedback to help identify opportunities for improvement.

[Pounce]

I really like VS and would do anything to help the owners. I mean that. I own several of their hardware devices. That said I do happen to agree with the general criticism of the graphics being outdated. Graphics are hard and In know its a small business and I can tell they work hard. If customers had the ability to modify some of the graphics we might see some open source collaborative improvements with low effort from VS.

 

10 minutes ago, WhyPhy said:

I also don't understand why there aren't better instructions the the box

You got instructions in the box? I just looked at the instructions on the website.

[WhyPhy]

4 minutes ago, Pounce said:

You got instructions in the box? I just looked at the instructions on the website.

I also want to help VS succeed. I know how hard it can be for small technology companies.

Yeah, the out-of-box experience wasn't ideal. I eventually looked on the website when I got around to installing the Control4 drivers, but that wasn't until after the "ghost key press issue" presented itself. I'm guessing I'm not the only person to ever experience this. Even if full instructions aren't in the box, there should at least be the warning message about not plugging it in without first downloading the app, and also a link to the full online instructions.