[mythtv-users] USB IR Receivers For LIRC

Tom Bongiorno tbjr at bongohut.com
Thu Oct 8 16:15:19 UTC 2015


On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 6:35 PM, Mike Carron <jmcarron at starstream.net> wrote:

>
>
> 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
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
> MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org
>

Although I agree, I think it is hard to grasp how easy flirc is to use
without having one. There are limitations such as no IR blasting, special
keypress modes, and maybe some other obscure tweaker stuff. Most irexec
stuff could easily be replaced with built-in keyboard shortcuts. My guess
is that 95% of MythTV users would find this to be the easiest solution that
just works. As I read this thread, it is hard to believe that anyone would
consider any LIRC solution to be easier than flirc.

All that said, if I had a reason to use LIRC, I would probably go down the
MCE route. It will probably be the most mainstream and well supported route
long term even though the WMC software is EOL.

-Tom
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20151008/6f27d504/attachment.html>


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list