Advice on remote controlling my HTPC

niko-time

niko-time

niko-time

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Joined
26 Apr 2012
Posts
60
Location
Norwich/Notts
Hi, I am looking to convert my main desktop into a HTPC and have decided on the Xigmatex Giggas case as I love it (but mainly because the girlfriend will allow it in the living room...) and will use my 27" Korean IPS (see extensive thread in monitor section) as my main tv with my TV tuner, currently set up to work with MCE. As it will be used as a PVR I won't be turning the PC off but instead always putting it in Hibernate.

Now, I think I shall be purchasing the Logitech Harmony 700 to try and control all this, my motherboard is going to be the Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 (basically I needed a AM3+ motherboard with Optical Out/free PCI slot for my wireless card/free PCIEx1 slot for a USB3 front header adapter and this was the only one I could find - my GPU is the 6850 and takes up two drive bays). I was wondering what I would need to buy in order to use the Harmony to control this HTPC? Ideally it would be able to turn the whole thing off and on but after lots of googling that seems like it will be a bit of a bugger. I have found this: http://www.simerec.com/ but I would have to import from america and they currently don't support actually controlling the PC, only turning it off and off. I am going to have to make this girlfriend friendly so everything will have to be set up as simply as possible...

Any advice? Cheers!


EDIT: Also apologies if in wrong section, when I originally was posting this I thought I would talk more about my case I guess, and felt HTPC felt better in the case section than anywhere else...
So to make up for it, here is a picture of the case:
Xigmatek-Gigas-Micro-ATX-Cube.jpg

Isn't it cool? And if I used the simerec mentioned I believe I would have to drill into this beast, which I am pretty scared to do...Or could the sensor be shoved in the big X shape??
 
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on the off chance you have one already.

I use a PS3 remote to control mine and being blutooth it doesnt need line of sight.

Bit off a hassle getting it working right but very cheap for me as I had the remote (dongle about a fiver) but works very well indeed with XBMC.
 
If you have a smartphone something like unified remote sounds perfect for what you need. It has the ability to wake on lan (from any sleep/hibernate/off state), full mouse and keyboard function and even a load of custom app remotes if you want to pay for it.
 
Whilst that would be good, it needs to be available and simple for my girlfriend, especially when I'm not there, which a smart phone app won't be able to do.
 
I don't know what level of technical expertise your girlfriend has but it is literally as simple as having a trackpad on your touch screen, or a keyboard and just remote controlling. I would personally consider that pretty idiot proof as long as you can use a computer in the first place, but if it's too much then something like xbmc and a ps remote would probably be the best bet.
 
Sorry for late reply.

Nope my Blu tooth remote will not wake a device out of hibernate, does of course depend on the device for example some devices even motherboards have blu tooth built on one of these its probaly possible to wake up from hibernate.

Funny enough it never crossed my mind to look for motherboards with blu tooth and I have only just replaced my media centre machine with a Z77 based sandybridge.

One big thing with the sony remote though it is of course obvious what stuff does and I did find it quite wife friendly.
 
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