XBMC Gets a Dedicated Remote

Malard writes "XBMC users can rejoice, developers from the team have partnered with Motorola to re-develop their previously announced Nyxboard remote with RF, programmable IR and full support on Windows, Mac, Linux and Original Apple TVs."

Finally...

[MoldySpore]

...I can get rid of the crappy remote I was using. Since my harmony didn't work with it well I was using a standard Meritline special, that basically just did mouse and keyboard inputs. Got the job done, but I would much rather have the full functionality of XBMC in my hand instead of the work around method I was using. This will really turn XBMC into the all-in-one media front end it was meant to be. It will also be much less daunting of a task to control for some of the less tech-savvy out there, such as my parents. They have no issues using the keyboard/mouse combo, but a remote that has all the functions you need built in (such as being able to bring up all the various menus) will make like easier for a lot of people.

It's interesting...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It is always a bit surprising how expensive and/or limited remotes have continued to be. The hardware for implementing IRDA (at least when purchased in USB dongle form) costs peanuts(and, while ordinary remote control IR is somewhat different in operation, it has fairly similar part count and less demanding data rates, plus much higher volume, so it could hardly cost more) on the PC side, BT HID peripherals start fairly cheap as well, and have fairly standard support in most OSes for all normal keycodes, some extended multimedia ones, as well as mouse position and button state information. Ample.

The only real complication would be dealing with the assorted wacky IR codes used by random consumer electronics. Even there, though, an IR receiver for 'learning' or a small abuse of the HID spec for allowing a utility program to download premade device control sets would be neither difficult nor expensive.

And yet, we still have just a few classes of remote: the 'free in the box, impossible to obtain a replacement' device specific ones, the dollar-store 'universal' ones(universality may vary), the MCE-yes-the-computer-is-MCE-enabled-out-of-the-box-but-it-still-comes-with-this-ghastly-USB-dongle ones(all of which seem to have hit every branch while falling out of the ugly tree), or the extremely expensive basically-an-entire-PDA fully programmable universal ones.