I’ve got one of these and since in my PC Kodi is running on top pretty much all of the time, it works as well as a dedicated remote on a dedicated media box.
The upsides are that as I said it just works as one expects a remote and whilst it is wireless, it also has an infrared emitter and 5 programmable buttons for it, so I also use it to turn ON/OFF my TV and sound bar.
The downsides are that the little keyboard on the reverse side is a bit awkward to use, especially if you need to type uppercase characters, special characters or numbers and the air mouse is a bit too finicky to use comfortably, both of which are extras beyond the normal remote functionality, so it’s no problem unless you expect to replace a keyboard + mouse or remote login once in a while for Linux maintenance tasks. Also this specific remote won’t, for who knows what reason (bug? stupid design decision?), work if the remote is slightly tilted, which is a bit of a downside of this model and, of course, it can’t actually turn your PC ON because it’s wireless with a USB dongle and the PC won’t read USB it’s not ON (though maybe it can work if one uses hibernate and keyboard wake-up, since the remote just looks like a Keyboard+Mouse device for the PC, but I haven’t tried it and since I just have that PC on all the time because it’s also a home server, I don’t really care)
It’s my understanding that when you press a button in the remote these things just send down the pipe a key-press of a letter matching the function of the button (so for example the menu button is ‘m’) and those letters just so happen to be the Kodi shortcut keys for those functions (I reckon these things are standardized rather than “coincidence”).
You can see in the recommendations on that page various other similar models. I reckon that as long as you avoid the “Voice command” stuff (which is tightly tied with Google Android) and go for a wireless remote which looks like it has a many buttons as a normal remote would, you’ll be fine. Keep in mind that traditional IR remotes won’t work for controlling something like a PC because the PC has no built-in IR receiver or software for support such a remote (normal IR remotes are pretty custom with different codes for different makers and even devices, rather than standardized as this one seems to be) hence the need to use a wireless one with a USB dongle (theoretically Bluetooth should also work).
Saving this for later, And yeah, while I think having a keyboard on the remote would probably be useful. I plan on using a wireless keyboard and mouse as well because my plan involves using a more powerful computer so it can double as a gaming machine.
Any remote recommendations? I’ve been thinking about doing something similar.
I’ve got one of these and since in my PC Kodi is running on top pretty much all of the time, it works as well as a dedicated remote on a dedicated media box.
The upsides are that as I said it just works as one expects a remote and whilst it is wireless, it also has an infrared emitter and 5 programmable buttons for it, so I also use it to turn ON/OFF my TV and sound bar.
The downsides are that the little keyboard on the reverse side is a bit awkward to use, especially if you need to type uppercase characters, special characters or numbers and the air mouse is a bit too finicky to use comfortably, both of which are extras beyond the normal remote functionality, so it’s no problem unless you expect to replace a keyboard + mouse or remote login once in a while for Linux maintenance tasks. Also this specific remote won’t, for who knows what reason (bug? stupid design decision?), work if the remote is slightly tilted, which is a bit of a downside of this model and, of course, it can’t actually turn your PC ON because it’s wireless with a USB dongle and the PC won’t read USB it’s not ON (though maybe it can work if one uses hibernate and keyboard wake-up, since the remote just looks like a Keyboard+Mouse device for the PC, but I haven’t tried it and since I just have that PC on all the time because it’s also a home server, I don’t really care)
It’s my understanding that when you press a button in the remote these things just send down the pipe a key-press of a letter matching the function of the button (so for example the menu button is ‘m’) and those letters just so happen to be the Kodi shortcut keys for those functions (I reckon these things are standardized rather than “coincidence”).
You can see in the recommendations on that page various other similar models. I reckon that as long as you avoid the “Voice command” stuff (which is tightly tied with Google Android) and go for a wireless remote which looks like it has a many buttons as a normal remote would, you’ll be fine. Keep in mind that traditional IR remotes won’t work for controlling something like a PC because the PC has no built-in IR receiver or software for support such a remote (normal IR remotes are pretty custom with different codes for different makers and even devices, rather than standardized as this one seems to be) hence the need to use a wireless one with a USB dongle (theoretically Bluetooth should also work).
Saving this for later, And yeah, while I think having a keyboard on the remote would probably be useful. I plan on using a wireless keyboard and mouse as well because my plan involves using a more powerful computer so it can double as a gaming machine.