FLIRC USB Fire TV Edition

This little usb device is easy to set up--but there are no instructions. The instructions that are on the web are scattered and bits and pieces are all you get. I got it to work...finally...and it works great! I use the harmony hub using the simple remote. I do not use the iphone version as a remote control using bluetooth. If I did I would not need this USB device since the Shield has bluetooth. Since I don't use the iphone as a remote--the 16gb version of the Shielld and a Harmony Remote will not work without this FLIRC as it is no IR. I think the 500gb N. shield has IR built in...but am not sure. These steps may not work for you; particularly if you have a different harmony remote than I do...and I am going off memory. I also use mac OSX. I plugged the FLIRC in my imac USB port. I downloaded the Flirc software. Once installed, the software auto checked for firmware updates. There was an update. the Flirc updated. Once updated. I pulled the FLIRC out of the imac USB port. I plugged in my harmony hub and used myharmony,com. You need to add the FLIRC as a device. DO NOT ADD the Nvidia Shield as a device on the harmony for IR on the 16gb machine. It will do you no good. You have to pretend that the FLIRC is the N. Shield basically for the set up to the harmony if you are using IR. Add device on the harmony. Manufacture: FLIRC Model #: Kodi It should appear as a device now. You have to now set up an activity for the FLIRC. (Remember, pretend this is the N. Shield in your mind) Click Add activity I clicked "additional watch tv"-- I then changed it to watch Nvidia in the next screen. On the hub and simple remote--this does not really matter what you call it except for identification purposes. You can call it whatever you want. Click your set ups that you want...just make sure you select the FLIRC as one of you choices. I clicked the TV; receiver; and FLIRC. Make sure you click the TV as how to show the video. The rest is how ever your set up is. (HDMI 1; 2 ;3 etc.) On the simple remote you have to set up the 3 buttons to power on activities. Click "buttons" from the main menu of the remote in myharmony and click which button you want for the Nvidia. Again- this is for the harmony hub using the simple remote. Sync the remote. Plug the harmony hub back in as if you are using it on your TV as normal. Take a laptop so you are near the harmony hub and your Shield. Plug the FLIRC into your laptops' USB port. Open the FLIRC Software. You should see a remote on the screen. Grab your harmony simple remote. Once the FLIRC software is open--with the FLIRC in the laptops USB port--use your mouse to click the top left under "controllers". Find Nvidia Shield and select it. You should now see the Shields remote on the screen. Click go or start ( I cannot remember) and you will see a green light highlighting what the SHIELD REMOTE DOES. For example it will highlight the top of the arrow keys as "up" etc. when these are highlighted--you click on your HARMONY remote where you want it. I did up; down; side RT; side LT and center just like the Shield remote; For " Back" I clicked on the harmony what I use for the back key; and I clicked on the harmony "menu" key when it got to the home key on the Shield. (But you can program the keys whatever your preference. Once it is done that is it. You can save the settings onto your desktop if you want. Unplug the FLIRC from the laptop USB port and plug it into the Nvidia shield's USB port. Use your harmony simple remote. NOTE: I had to use a usb extender on the N. Shield from the back to the front.; but some people report that it works fine without one. Why an extender?: If the IR signal is not "read" the remote won't work and the USB port is in the back of the Shield. I tested it and everything works great. Hope this helps. It was a hassle setting it up as I did not know what I was doing. I pieced together items from the internet and got it figured out.

WOW, this is awesome!!! I am so glad that this product exists because there is nothing out there that compares and this made my home theater setup SO MUCH BETTER!!! I have an nvidia shield and a Sony 4K TV. I use a Sony Universal remote to control my TV, Soundbar, Home theater System, Bluray Player, and the shield. It's GREAT being able to control everything with 1 remote, but there is one problem that has caused issues for me for a long time... There's no equivalent button in my TV remote for the "Home" Button for the shield (android TV) which goes through CEC. In an effort to try to get a "home" button functionality out of my IR universal remote, I bought this little device. It took about 30 seconds to program this thing and as soon as I plugged it in it started working. First off... the reception is AMAZING!!! I have this mounted directly behind the center of my 55" TV, and somehow it picks up the IR signal from my remote literally no matter where I point the remote... Even if I point it at the wall behind me. It picks up the signal every time no matter what (which is really really nice). Also, it goes home every time I push the button, and this has fixed other issues I have had, for instance, CEC control not working after switching inputs, or the shield going to sleep and not waking up through CEC and I would have to find the shield remote and press the button to wake it up... Small glitches, but annoying nonetheless. But with the FLIRC, one press of that home button and everything wakes up, turns on, goes home, and starts working. It's sort of an "oh crap" button and it hasn't failed me yet. Sorry for the long winded review, but really. A+ Guys... I thought at first that $25 was pricey for what this is, but after living with it for a month I am 100% sure it was worth every single penny!!! It works as advertised, the quality is outstanding, and it's so versatile. It works amazing with my shield. But if I decide to get a FireTV, it will work with that. If I plug in a windows PC to my TV, it will work with that, too!! BUY THIS if you have a high tech home theater... It will come in handy in ways you can't even imagine!!

Let me state right up front that I am a Linux user... so what I am writing pertains to Linux, not any other OS... and also to the Raspberry Pi, which is what it's attached to. This is a bit of a PITA to install in Arch Linux or any of it's offshoots like Manjaro, which is what I use. I have a generation 1 Flirc (the clear one) for my bedroom Raspberry Pi and it works great. I needed to get another Flirc because the cheapo 19" tv I bought recently for the screen porch has CEC- but the CEC does not work in Kodi with the RPi for some reason. Since it's a PITA to have to use a mouse to control the tv in Kodi I bought one of these. Ok, first thing I learned is that a gen 2 Flirc does *not* work with gen 1 software. I had the gen 1 software and it didn't recognize the Flirc. Wouldn't connect. No, there are no instructions of any kind with the device. Other reviewers are correct about that. The Flirc repository has .rpm files for other distros and Debian .deb files you can download if you're using a Debian based distro. I am using an Arch based distro. The software for this device is in the Arch AUR. That's how I installed it the first time. Unfortunately the package maintainer has not kept up with the changes and the package is way out of date and won't install. Without the software, you can't program the remote... :-/ After much digging, some simple editing of the SRCINFO and PKGBUILD with mousepad solved the problem. I had to change the source to the *current* file in the repo and change the package version and the md5sums in both files. Then I ran "makepkg" and it gave me a file I was able to install with the Arch package manager. *Note* that you have to uninstall the gen 1 software first, as they conflict. So once I programmed it, I had no issues. It works fine, just like my old one. And yes it does require "line of sight". I attached mine to a usb extension cable and it's plugged into one the usb ports on the RPi. So I'm still giving it 5 stars because- at least with Arch- the software problem is not the fault of the Flirc developers- it's the fault of the package maintainers of the AUR software. All in all it's a great device.

What it does: You plug in a USB power connector to the female side, and you plug the male side into your Fire TV Stick. At this point, the FLIRC device appears as a USB HID device to the Fire TV Stick, and the app-configured Fire TV buttons are sent to the Fire TV device when you press buttons on the remote. How you set it up: You connect a normal Micro USB cable into your computer. At this point, your computer should recognize it as a HID device. When you launch the FLIRC software, you select Controllers -> Fire TV, which configures the FLIRC device to map the basic Fire TV remote buttons. Hit Go and the FLIRC device will read IR commands from ANY remote. You can pick any unused remote that you have around and it'll probably just work. Or in my case, I told my Harmony remote to add a TiVo device, and I selected that device when I went through the button learning process. Once done, plug the FLIRC device inline to your Fire TV stick. That's it! Your remote should control your Fire TV stick, including buttons that you won't get via HDMI-CEC, such as the Info button, or even the Play button. The good: - The IR receiver is pretty good. Better than the one that I had built from parts for my old DVR. - It's easy to program The bad: - The product software seems like it was abandoned a half-dozen years ago. Either that, or the developers aren't into having a polished, bug-free product. - When launching the Windows app, it said that there's a Firmware upgrade available from v4.9.6 -> v4.10.1. When I agreed to update the firmware, it went through a process, rebooted the device, and said that the firmware update was successful. But it's still at 4.9.6. Every time I re-launch the Flirc software, I'm bugged to update from 4.9.6 to 4.10.1 - Doing a web search, I saw an article saying that the firmware update may fail on Windows because of something with the boot loader. So I figure I'd try Linux. Ha. - The Linux downloads are on an HTTPS page, but link to HTTP for the packages. - There's a suggestion to pipe a curl to an HTTP host to sudo bash, which is terrifying from a security perspective. The HTTPS certificate for the server expired in 2022. - After running the script, APT is reconfigured, but no software is actually installed. Manually installing flirc via apt doesn't actually install anything. - After finally finding a Linux machine that seemed to be compatible, the suggested packages to install did not map up with what was available. I had to manually make a symlink to make it appear like libreadline 7 was installed. - After all of this, the firmware update process went exactly the same as it did on Windows. That is, it said it was successful, but after it was done it remained at 4.9.6 - Given that you can manually update the firmware with the Flirc and flirt_util utilities, I figured that that'd be an option. Except for one problem: Where does one download a firmware? Apparently the firmwares and release notes are hard-coded into the GUI application itself, and I've found no reference for where you can just download a firmware. Having said all of this, the product works. And I can control my Fire TV Stick from my IR remote just fine. But the whole experience left so much to be desired. Tip: When choosing a micro USB cable, make sure that you have one that actually does USB data and not just power. For me, it took until the 3rd cable that I tried before I got one that allowed the FLIRC to be recognized. I blame cheap USB-powered device makers that save a couple of cents by skimping out on two conductors. During my troubleshooting phase, I saw some posts suggesting that you need a USB OTG cable to use this device. But at least with a Fire TV Stick, no, there's no special cable required for programming it, and there's no cable required at all to use it.

Read tons of review before purchasing this; lots of people said this new 2nd generation one was a POS, but others suggested that simply updating the firmware would fix the issues. Shortly after purchasing, FLIRC emailed me direclty and told me to do the same, which I thought was a nice gesture (though I realize it's truly just an attempt for them to save their arses). So I did just that - pulled it straight from the box and put it in my laptop. I visited the website and downloaded the software, then grabbed my remote and programmed the remote with no issues (seemingly). I then plugged the FLIRC into the back of my Fire TV and NONE of the buttons on my remote did anything. Tried reprogramming - same result. What's even weirder is that during the programming stage, when I got to the "select" button, when I pressed select on my remote it would say that the pairing was successful and move on to the next button to be programmed, BUT it also opened a new Internet Explorer browser... Even weirder than that, I NEVER use IE for anything. So why the this dongle would somehow translate me pressing the select button on my TV remote into "open up Internet Explorer" makes me question whether or not this thing even has the capability to work properly regardless of the firmware version. If the remote is currently in programming mode, it should ONLY be trying to receive IR signals from your remote. It should NOT be trying to receive signals while sending signals at the same time. Not to mention the $23 price tag is pretty damn hefty. Instead, I just bought a Harmony smart remote with a hub for $70. Makes no sense. Returning tomorrow.

I've used one of these handy gadgets for almost nine years. I broke my old one from carelessness, so it was a "no-brainer" to buy another to replace it.

Functionally this works great. I was able to use any remote I set up without much trouble, I did have to adjust the interval for repeat presses but the fact that you CAN adjust this is great. My only real problem is the plastic cover that protects the circuitry and allows the beam to reach the sensor is not designed well and falls off easily, I use the flirc to control KODI media player on a couple different systems, one of which is portable and the USB connection made the flirc an ideal choice as it would be quite easy to switch between setups. Now the cap has fallen off and gotten lost, exposing the board to a higher risk of damage and though I'm entirely sure yet it seems that the unit has stopped responding to the remote. I don't expect the missing cover to have affected usability but it may have filtered the IR signal or perhaps removed other frequencies of light that could affect the sensor. The other part of the body appears to simply slide over the metal usb connector and is held stationary by the now missing cap. The last thing I'll say is that I believe this unit is overpriced for what it is. One may purchase a Raspberry Pi Computer for about $35 and for less than $50 have a fully functioning PC, The flirc would seem to be a much simpler device and I would like to have more than one, but at $28, with design flaw I've encountered, I won't be rushing to order another anytime soon. FLIRC USB (2nd Generation) Universal Remote Control Receiver for Media Centers and Set Top Boxes

After messing around with LIRC on Linux, upgrading the OS, installing features, tools, mods, etc, my remote was still not working as I needed it. Enter FLIRC. I plugged this device into a front USB port on my Ubuntu 18.04 PC, running MythTV Frontend and ran the software installation per the manufacturer's website. The app has a nice GUI that let me picked from several templates to match some common remotes. All very easy. In my case, I bought a generic and cheap remote from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BYVHCXC but any common remote will do. Make sure your remote transmits infrared signals on all the keys. Some remotes need to be programmed for certain devices so they do. A quick trick to "see" the IR remote is to look at the front of it through your phone camera. You will see a bright light shine when you press a button. Because I'm using MythTV with it's very long list of features and controls, I simply selected "keyboard" from the FLIRC menu and a whole keyboard popped up. It was a simple matter of picking a key/function from the keyboard and pushing a button in the remote to match. The remote I picked can be programmed for 3 different devices so I assigned the FLIRC to one device and my TV to another. That way I can use the same remote for all functions. I highly recommend this FLIRC device. It's relatively cheap, super easy to use and, most importantly, it works right out of the box. If you're struggling with making LIRC work after your Linux upgrade, give this is device a try.

Works like a dream. Does what it claims. Nice pleasant charming product.

Mon iMac 27 pouces 5k avait perdu la possibilité d'être commandé à distance par la télécommande fourni avec l'ancienne génération. Donc pas de commande du multimédia à distance. Je disposais donc d'un télécommande apple neuve qui ne servait plus. Grace au FLIRC, j'ai pu retrouvé cette fonctionnalité et commande dorénavant ma musique depuis mon canapé. Il y a bien sur plein d'autres utilisations. Dans mon cas, après une rapide configuration, j'ai pu profiter à nouveau de cette très joli petite télécommande apple en aluminium. Merci FLIRC

Great little device - very easy to setup, works well on a NUC media player

Es un muy buen producto. Es exactamente lo que buscaba cuando puse, receptor de infrarrojos universal en el buscador. Puedes programar cualquier mando a distancia que tengas por casa para que funcione en tu PC o cualquier aparato con USB compatible. Con un software muy sencillo lo programas y el aparato funciona de forma independiente. Lo compré para otra cosa pero también lo estoy usando para mando a distancia del Kodi, pero lo puedes usar con otros reproductores o para lo que quieras.

Cumple perfectamente lo que promete. Para mejorarlo, debería de poderse grabar Macros de forma más intuitiva.