14Boxee Remote LogoThe search for a HTPC remote-keyboard

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I’ve been look­ing for a new (more ver­sat­ile) remote con­trol for my HTPC. At the moment I have to use a full-size key­board as the remote con­trol has no such facil­ity. I’ve been look­ing for a suit­able remote con­trol with key­board, and whilst I haven’t yet found quite the right thing I have found some inter­est­ing products…

If any­one knows of any more please post a com­ment below. Per­son­ally I’m hop­ing to see some­thing for HTPC’s (i.e. Win 7 Media Cen­ter, etc.) that is like a cross between the sky remote and the boxee remote (the full-fea­tured remote con­trol like the sky has, but dual-sided like the boxee rather than flip open). A rollerball or “nipple” for mouse con­trol would round it off beautifully 🙂

The boxee remote with key­board on reverse (now avail­able on amazon US)Boxee DSM-22 QWERTY Remote Control
The Brook­lyn Key­mote for PS3Brooklyn Keymote QWERTY Remote Control

The Sky NavigatorSky Navigator QWERTY Remote Control
Viz­io TV remoteVizio TV QWERTY Remote Control
Len­ovo Mini HTPC keyboard
Lenovo Multimedia QWERTY Remote Control
EFO Keyboard
EFO QWERTY Remote Control
Logit­ech DiNovo Mini
Logitech DiNovo Mini QWERTY Remote Control

Update 1…
Key­so­n­ic Wire­less Mini Key­board (cheers to Jonath­an for this one — see com­ments on this post)
Keysonic Wireless Mini Keyboard QWERTY Remote Control
Update 2…
The iGugu Inter­neTV QWERTY Remote
iGugu InterneTV QWERTY Remote ControlPS3 3‑in‑1 remote
Sony PlayStation 3 3-in-1 QWERTY Remote ControlAnoth­er PS3 3‑in‑1 Remote
Sony PlayStation 3 3-in-1 QWERTY Remote Control
Update 3…
Arch­os DRV RemoteArchos DVR QWERTY Remote Control
Tivo slid­ing remote
Tivo Sliding QWERTY Remote ControlStar­Hub RemoteStarHub QWERTY Remote Control

The On1 remote (can­’t find any more info on this, just a pic)On1 QWERTY Remote Control
Rii mini wire­less keyboard
Rii Mini Wireless QWERTY Remote ControlOld skool IBX100 internet.tv remote
IBX100J InterneTV QWERTY Remote Control
Update 4…

Philips Home Con­trol DualPhilips Home Control Dual QWERTY Remote Control

Motorola NYX­Board<a href=Motorola NYX­Board QWERTY Remote Con­trol” width=“288” height=“156” />

Update 5 (16-Dec-2010)…

Gyr­a­tion remote con­trol (mouse by move­ment, but no keyboard)Gyration QWERTY Remote Control

Update 6 (10-Jan-2011)…

Philips uWand Remote (cheers to Michael Stepanov)Philips uWand QWERTY Remote Control

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14 Comments

JSJon Scaife

I finally gave up wait­ing for some­where in the UK to sell the boxee remote (also known as the D‑Link DSM-22) and ordered one from Amazon in the US. Means I have to pay ship­ping and import duty, and wait about 2 weeks for it to come. Still it was only £40 in total, not too bad

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JSJon Scaife

No prom­ises on any of these work­ing on a PC I’m afraid, it’s just a list of remote con­trols with key­board. There may be 3rd party pro­jects on the net that can get some of them work­ing of course. That looks like a pretty decent remote to me. If it wer­en’t for the fact that the boxee remote is now avail­able (via Amazon US) I’d prob­ably get one. Cheers for the link!

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Ffbc3s6x

Hi Jon, You list the Arch­os DRV Remote, but does it work with a PC? If so I will give it a try. What I have been using recently with Win­dows 7 is the SC-504 2.4Ghz Wire­less Media Centre Track­ball Remote. Works fine and I love that it has mouse and arrow keys. But a stand­ard key­board lay­out instead of the phone-style one would have been more use­ful. Regards, M8

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JSJon Scaife

I’ve added the Philips uWand which looks excel­lent, espe­cially as the tech­no­logy will be licensed. Just a shame it isn’t likely to hit the mar­ket for anoth­er 12 months.

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JSJon Scaife

Cheers for that link Richard, but that looks like a fairly com­mon full sized wire­less key­board + touch­pad offer­ing — not what I’m look­ing for unfor­tu­nately. I’m look­ing for some­thing that is primar­ily a 1‑hand-oper­ated remote con­trol with stand­ard remote con­trol but­tons. With the addi­tion of a key­board for occa­sion­al use typ­ing in names of pro­grams I want to record. I won­der if a micro­phone and voice recog­ni­tion would do the trick with a stand­ard remote con­trol? That would be impressive 🙂

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JSJon Scaife

So the boxee remote can now be had from Amazon in the US. Hope­fully the UK will soon follow.I’ve also added anoth­er new remote I encountered. It does­n’t have a key­board — but it does have the equi­val­ent of a mouse, and it does sup­port RF.

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GGeet

Jon, Agreed, it’s not really in the same class, but the motion mouse point­er is cool. It was what I was going to buy before­hand, and for me, using plex on my mac it just lacked the nor­mal “lets watch TV” remote fea­tures. I really like the look of the boxee remote, but also once again, not enough but­tons, I use a the apple remote now and have pro­grammed it with click, double click and long click for each but­ton, so a fair amount of options (I don’t need a num­ber pad with plex) but I do need to type into searches a lot. I think it will come down to boxee remote, Philips Home Con­trol Dual or the Tivo slid­ing remote. I would need to remove the tivo brand­ing and such since it annoys me, but a pretty nice feel­ing remote, all the needed but­tons and I like the slide out key­board. Still wait­ing for more inform­a­tion to be released on the home con­trol dual.. still no price or release date that I can find. From just look or reviews, which is your favour­ite from the above list? Geet Jacobs

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JSJon Scaife

Cheers for the info Geet. Sadly it does­n’t provide remote con­trol func­tion­al­ity, it is a nov­el wire­less keyboard/mouse though. This post is really to keep track of devices that are primar­ily remote con­trols that in addi­tion offer a qwerty key­board. It’s still use­ful to know of related products though, thanks!

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GJGeet Jacobs

Hey there, anoth­er one is miss­ing a lot of the nor­mal remote feel, but has wii type wire­less mouse action. Fly-Mouse 2.4GHz wire­less key­board. Image here

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JSJon Scaife

Well, Boxee are finally get­ting ready to release the Boxee Box, in the US at least, in Novem­ber. Hope­fully it will be world­wide not US only. And hope­fully the remote will be avail­able sep­ar­ately. Oth­er than that, I still haven’t found any­thing, but I’m still looking.

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JSJon Scaife

Agreed on the use of RF! Most remotes have a power but­ton which can be fairly eas­ily set up to wake the PC from standby which is what I (and I guess most oth­er HTP­Cers) use. The product you men­tion does­n’t seem to have a power but­ton. I won­der if its pos­sible to remap a dif­fer­ent key to act as one though? Sadly as yet I haven’t man­aged to fig­ure out any­thing par­tic­u­larly good. I wondered if it was pos­sible to get a gen­er­ic IR receiv­er and use the sky remote via some 3rd party soft­ware. Whilst it seems pos­sible in the­ory, I can­’t find any details of it work­ing in prac­tice, and the soft­ware avail­able looks com­plic­ated and time con­sum­ing to fig­ure out. Maybe when I’ve got more time to experiment…

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JJonathan

I would be inter­ested if you find some­thing suit­able. I’ve got some­thing sim­il­ar to the Key­so­n­ic ACK-540RF. It’s OK on your lap, but rub­bish to pick up and use because you’ve got to hold it with one hand and peck at the keys with the oth­er. For me, a really good remote would be sim­il­ar to your descrip­tion above + use RF not IR, and be able to switch the PC on & off (although I may need to rewire the on/off switch to do this).

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