Roomie Remote - Page 11

Just going through a eval of roomie and i am already stuck at first hurdle

Roomie does not find my pioneer vsx1020-k over ip - before I shelll out for an ipTac IR I want to make sure roomie will play nice with my pioneer amp - I want ip control as the hdmi switching on this amp for me is quite flaky and I am hoping ip controll will be better

I know the system (ipone 4s , router netgear and roomie software) are working ok as it finds my Samsung tv via ip and I can control it

I am sure it's something simple but I am not sure if it's something on amp side or software side I am doing wrong

I am having the amp getting it's ip dynamically and I did make a try to do this via static adress but to be honest I was not sure what all I had to plug into the pioneer amp beyond ip adress to make this work

Is there digital book I can read that will explain all this ip adress subnet mask gateway proxy port nonsense?

Did you install the Pioneer ControlApp? I like troubleshooting from that because I know that once I get the Pioneer App to recognize the receiver then Roomie will as well. There should be a section in the receiver's manual to get the Control App to work with it.

I am not a network guy either so what I did on my Onkyo receiver was set it up dynamically, wrote down the addresses listed and then changed it to manual and plugged in the same values. I had no idea what I was doing but it worked and has been working perfectly since.

It is not possible AFAIK

1. You will need the app from the app store first.
This will only give you control of 2 IP devices in 1 room.
2. You will then need the Theater Pack which will give you unlimited devices and unlimited rooms.
3. Then you will need the infrared control pack to control you IR devices.
2 & 3 are purchased after once you have the app downloaded on your device through the roomee app.
4. Then you will need to purchase the Global Cache iTach Ethernet to Infrared adapter to control your IR devices.
Check out the FAQ and the Store on the Roomie website for all the info.

Now I have Roomie running on the iPad, but it doesn't fit on the iPhone screen...how do I fix that?

I agree. Took less than an hour to setup Roomie, and still working on iRule I just keep thinking to myself that it will be worth all the work once I can use my android device or another program come along like Roomie but for Android. I really think Roomie has their head in the sand on this issue

Jim

Yes my pioneer iControlAV app works just fine- this is quite frustrating

Just ordered my iTech yesterday from the Roomie Website. Anxious to see if it really does all it is supposed to do. The 2 way function has always been my biggest gripe since I bought the upgraded Denon remote that NEVER worked right.

I ALMOST went with a Control 4 system but it appears that this can do everything and more. Lighting, AV control, etc. I'm sure the Control 4 is a bit more polished but this looks like a killer option considering some of the estimates I got for a Control 4 system were close to $1k installed, programmed and all the equipment.

Hmmmm. It should work then. Roomie does have a note on the compatibility chart "AutoDiscovery (Port 8102)". When you go into the network setting on the receiver is it set to 8102?

Ever since DirectTV went to the new HD guide my arrow buttons on my roomie remote have not worked correctly. For instance on the menu for the playlist or managing recordings if I hit the down arrow to move the highlighted bar down one option and the highlighter will go down multiple lines all of the way to the bottom of the list. Any ideas?

Bluexj,

I have this same issue, but I thought it was just me.

Yay got it working!!!!!!!

Plugged in a new port # and all is good- got fantastic Suport from roomie with instant email responses to help diagnose the issue and help me through my noobie network questions.

Still no idea why it wont see it during auto discovery but as it works via manual add don't care

Digging getting info on receiver status now just nee to find a way to add my acer projector then all will be perfet

I had the same issue but this was fixed in version 1.3.1 .. My Directv receiver works fine now.

Have a dumb question. I dont have an I phone or I pad or touch but I like the idea. Could I just buy an older I Pad or such and use this device? Do I need to buy anything else besides the app, I would use if for Sony tv, Sony pc speakers, cable box, ps3.

Anyone?

You can certainly buy a used device (ipod touch, ipad, etc). You will need to purchase an itach ip2ir device which allows you to send ir commands via your wireless network. They can be purchased off roomie website. I would suggest you read the FAQ on Roomie to learn more. Good luck.

Someone answered earlier int he thread and you probably missed it, you can not connect using 3G network you need to be within your net work for ip control to play nice

Now it would be cool to control using cell network but that is I suspect outside of current scope

Geordie,
To answer your;
"Roomie has the inbuilt graphics but it's useless to me because you can't lay them out how you want. It lets you hide certain parts of a remote and thats it. You cant even make a page that has mixed controls on it like for example DVD transport, receiver functions and a light switch. It wont let you map any command to any button. You can only have DVD commands on the DVD remote, receiver controls on the receiver remote etc. (apart from volume). So you have to jump between pages to access the buttons you use often that belong to different remotes."

Roomie will not let you edit the device remote with commands from different devices, but you can edit an "Activity" remote with multiple commands from multiple devices (ie. the volume buttons control AVR and the play button can start the movie and dim the lights through my lighting controller (macro)).
I have noticed that when trying to edit an activity remote though it depends on where you click the "Add a command" button (if you tap the center it lets you pick any device and command, but if you tap the "+" it only lets you add commands from the default device). Possibly a bug.
Hope this helps.

Roomie will not let me create a device to control curtains, as an example...my only choices are remotes Roomie already knows about. It is true that any command for any device can be inserted by following several steps precisely (outside the app), but there are rather severe limitations and anything added won't be well integrated into the app unless the programmers "make it so".

> Roomie will not let me create a device to control curtains

Of course it will. There's a whole entry in the FAQ dedicated to creating custom infrared, serial, and IP devices:

http://www.roomieremote.com/faq/#customDevice

To say it's inconvenient because it's not in the app isn't really being fair as Roomie is also the only one of these kinds of apps that enables doing everything in the app. For this one special case of the oddball curtains that don't have well-known codes, it seems like not a big deal to make an exception. What limitations exactly? New devices are added constantly without new software so it seems pretty broad. You can see these on their website.

>Roomie will not let you edit the device remote with commands
>from different devices, but you can edit an "Activity" remote
>with multiple commands from multiple devices

I said this a few pages ago, but will say again the tutorial video really is important to watch. It's all about how to create activities. If someone missed that and just tried to work with raw remotes and never created any activities, they would think all kinds of things weren't there that are like multi-device targeting custom remotes and custom buttons.

>Anyone know if it's possible to use Roomie over a 3G network

This isn't a Roomie issue. The way to do that is to use the iPhone's VPN feature to your home. If you did that, Roomie would no doubt work as well outside your network. The key is to get your IP addresses aligned from outside your network which is exactly what the VPN does, and that's all built-in to the iPhone, has nothing to do with Roomie really. The complex part is just setting up your router and whether it supports the IPsec style VPN that iPhone uses.

This is exactly how it works. This is how you add buttons from other devices to custom remote layouts. Not a bug.

Thanks for that info, I had indeed been adding commands using the '+' which does not give you more than one device to choose from, whereas tapping the text right next to it does.

So that's one of my deal breakers solved. Can you help with the two others; not being able to put buttons where you want, and the text and icons on the buttons being too small for my family to read?!

Jayworth-Thanks for continuing my education, but I wonder if I live in a parallel universe or am just unusually dense. I just watched the tutorial again and see nothing there that that gets to my concerns. I have read the DDK document repeatedly, and I have formatted the IR commands so Roomie can read them and inserted them via a plist in Dropbox. However custom commands need to be associated with an existing remote, or custom buttons on an existing remote....which I don't understand how to create.

I'm not knocking Roomie in any way. I think it's rather amazing, and I don't expect the designers to include codes for something as exotic as Makita curtain control...they cover a lot of ground without that.

Keep explaining things to me..I need the help!

Here's the step where I run into the wall:

"5. Edit the type, brand, and category values in the Template. The type should be one of
the types listed in the Available Device Types section of this document. Whatever
matches your device most closely is fine. Enter the numeric value such as 16 for a
Receiver. Finally, edit the brand and category to be whatever describes your device
best such as ‘Panasonic’ and ‘BDT-220’."

This is a quote from the DDK document on adding custom commands. Because it is necessary to select a device type from the existing list, I am at a loss to find anything that would work for curtain control, even from the 'auxiliary' list.

Bill,

I too have Makita curtains (okay, so the curtains aren't from Makita, but....... ) - I have a Roomie device that has open/close/stop buttons..... and it all works extremely well.

I'm not really sure how to help you as I'm unsure specifically where you're struggling - is it with the room/device/activity hierachy???

Anyway, you seem to have done all the heavy lifting (getting the discrete codes isolated, imported, etc.) and I think you're really, really close - keep the faith!

Dave

Bill - I was giving some further thought to where you might be getting hung up: Did you modify the plist keys to reflect that you were adding a new device??

FWIW, my Makita plist code is:

***********

brand
Makita
cat
Drape1
codes

CLOSE
0000 006d 0000 000b 000a 001f 000a 0043 000a 001f 000a 001f 000a 0043 000a 001f 000a 001f 000a 001f 000a 0043 000a 001f 000a 01a5
HALT
0000 006D 0000 000B 000A 001F 000A 0043 000A 001F 000A 0043 000A 001F 000A 0043 000A 001F 000A 001F 000A 0043 000A 001F 000A 017F
OPEN
0000 006d 0000 000b 000a 001f 000a 0043 000a 001f 000a 0043 000a 001f 000a 001f 000a 001f 000a 001f 000a 0043 000a 001f 000a 01a5

method
gc
type
1


************

The "Type" key relates to the device type - I set mine to "1" to reflect that this is to be an "Auxiliary" device. The brand key defines this as being for a "Makita". The method key denotes that this is going to be attached to a Global Cache controller

To use the code, I open up Roomie on my iTouch; "Add a device"; navigate to an IR port on my GC-100 controller: scroll down to "Auxiliary" under "Other Devices" and there is the "Makita" device>

Apologies if this is all familiar stuff, I don't mean to sound patronizing - just thought I'd share how it plays out for me. Hope some of this helps.

Dave

Hey, I'm thrilled to have a patron! With the specifics you posted I should be able to get there. My curtains aren't Makita either, just the mechanism to operate them. I sewed them myself...talk about a learning curve!

Hey Geordie,
Glad I could help. To rearrange the button order, when editing the remote, you can touch where the three horizontal bars are and drag that button higher or lower in the list. For easier to read text all I can say is making them all capital letters (ie. instead of Play, make it PLAY).
Hope this helps.

Dave-

To prevent a typo on my part, I cut and pasted your plist file into an XML editor to have a look at it, then transferred it unchanged to Dropbox. Now when I try to Restore Configuration from Dropbox, the process looks as if it's beginning, but then the app closes abruptly without changing anything. I discovered in the past that I could neither save nor restore without first rebooting the iPad or a 'fail' message would appear. just a nuisance, but that isn't what's going on now.

I will go back to the template offered by the Roomie folks and plug in following your instructions. Maybe your file became corrupted somehow.

Here's a related question-Roomie states that importing and saving a new plist will erase the old one by over-writing it. I have already used a RoomieCodes.plist to add the proper inputs for my AVP, and I don't want those changes to disappear from my configuration. If I change the plist for the curtain controls, will I lose the old stuff? I will review the instructions once more to see if I can't just add the new device and commands onto the old list.

Bill - I just cut that Makita code segment out of my RoomieCodes file; there was other header/footer code that I didn't include, so if you just did a C&P into the file then I'm sure it won't work.

The way I understand the RoomieCode file process to work is that it has to contain all of your supplemental (i.e. non-Roomie provided) device information: you have to always include everything that is being added above and beyond the Roomie default devices, each time you do an upload. So in my case, I have an older model Lexicon pre-amp that isn't included in the IR codes supplied by Roomie - whenever I update my Makita code (for example), I have to include the Lexicon code in the file I submit to DropBox.

The way I first added in a new device was to open the RoomieCode file that originally came from Roomie, and modify the one device they provide as an example (an XBox IIRC) - as I subsequently add additional devices, I just copy/paste an existing device lower down to create a duplicate entry, and then I edit the keys appropriately - this leaves the required header/footer info intact. [But I think that this is what you were proposing to do anyway]

I haven't experienced any of the failures or need to reboot that you mentioned - all works as advertized. [There was a version update to Roomie this morning that, among other items, referenced a bug fix for DropBox - however, it has always worked without a problem for me]

As an aside, in the plist code I shared, I use "Open", "Close" and "Halt" labels for the commands - I choose Halt instead of Stop because Roomie defaults to displaying the buttons in alphabetical order: Using 'Halt' positions the "cease and desist" button in the middle of the other two, which seems more intuitive to me. [There has been some discussion on the forum today relating to changing the order of remote buttons, so I'll see if there is a more flexible way of doing this once I've had chance to digest what was said - definitely still lots for me to learn]

Dave