[mythtv-users] USB IR Receivers For LIRC

[Mike Carron]

On 10/07/2015 11:58 AM, Kirk Bocek wrote:
> I thought I'd start a new thread since our other one got mixed in with 
> some ECS Liva stuff.
>
> I want to know if anyone knows of any currently available USB IR 
> receivers that just work with LIRC and a standard Linux distro. That 
> means on being plugged in they load a kernel driver and create a 
> /dev/lirc interface.
>
> Tom Bongiorno has pointed towards http://flirc.tv/. But that sounds 
> like a keyboard interface and lots of programming and work-arounds and 
> grief.
>
> I was also directed to:
>
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-RC2604315-01BG-Media-Center-Remote-Control-USB-IR-Receiver-OVU710018-01-/251421736049? 
>
>
> (Sorry forgot who) But it turns out that user was using it with Kodi 
> or something similar and not LIRC. I just never got it to work despite 
> patching the mceusb.ko source and lots of work removing the default 
> keyboard interface.
>
> There must be something out there. I took my *ancient* Microsoft 
> branded IR receiver, plugged it into my brand new ECS Liva running 
> Fedora 21 and LIRC 0.9.1a and it *Just Worked*.
>
> There must be something else out there!
**
The flirc is a keyboard interface but does not require work-arounds or 
grief. The programming is telling it what key press to output for each 
different signal from the remote. It was a simple matter to choose what 
keys I want active from Setup -> Edit Keys and assign them to the 
various buttons on the remote. I got one set up the way I wanted it and 
simply copied that configuration to my other flircs and I was set. The 
only thing that caught me out at first was plugging the flirc into the 
USB3 port on the front of the ZBOX FE. The ZBOX won't respond to a 
signal from the USB3 port to resume from suspend. Moving the flirc to 
the adjacent USB2 port on the ZBOX fixed that issue and all has been 
fine since. Personally I've found using the flirc far simpler and more 
straightforward than trying to get LIRC properly configured.

mike