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I downloaded the official Android XBMC remote a little while after using another android remote control for quite a while.
When I first saw it I thought whats so special about this remote which makes it the official xbmc remote?
Well that was before one day I was watching Breaking Bad catching up with the seasons and my phone rang but not only that the show paused and a little xbmc popup came up saying exactly who was ringing with a little icon. I was so shocked I actually missed the call. This was followed with a text message from my voicemail service saying I had a new message. It was so seamless and I had no idea the android remote had this built in, so I looked through the settings and found these interesting options.
- Statusbar notification
- Show incoming SMS
- Show incoming calls
If that wasn’t impressive enough, the check list for features is something out of a dream. Here’s a couple of the most interesting ones.
- Control XBMC’s volume directly with your device’s volume buttons
- Manage multiple XBMC instances
- On incoming call, display who’s calling on TV screen and pause video until call is over
- On incoming message, display on TV screen
- Setting that prevents your phone locking the screen. You can apply it either for remote control only or all screens (or disable it completely)
- Cover art is shown where available
- Play and queue albums, songs, genre selections and much more directly without having to turn on your TV. For instance it’s possible to queue/play all songs from an artist but of a certain genre.
- Displays movie poster and actor thumbs where available.
- Play trailer from details page where available.
- Coming soon theres also some more really interesting features…
- Boxee compatibility
- Download media locally to device’s SD card
- Stream media to device
- Rating support in Now playing
- Last.FM integration
All this functionality has really made me give up the wii-mote as the preferred method of controlling XBMC. I’d suggest a couple more things like trans-coding (so you can take away a copy which isn’t multiple gigabytes), send to xbmc (bit like send to xbmc or xbmcfox), a locale plug-in (might be handy), a proximity sensor option (if you walk out the room for example it will pause or even stop after a while xbmc) and the ability to see additional media or even fansubs on the device its self.
I had the chance to play with the all new Boxee Remote and I was very impressed. It feels so light (it may or may not have had batteries in it) but solid enough to take some abuse like people sitting on it and being dropped off sofa edges on to stone floors. The top edge with the navigation is very mac like with the basic amount of controls to do most things. But then if you roll over the remote your greeted by a full qwerty keyboard. The keyboard is lower that the edges so even when lying flat the buttons don’t touch. Being all RF is good because the keyboard is very usable when not facing the screen. Although the remote is a good size I do wish it was a little thicker. I’ll be buying one for my xbmc setup as soon as there available.
