Touchscreen Remote For Sky Boxes

Brings back memories of endless nights of using Pronto software to configure my touch screen remote.. So much work involved to get Sky right.

The ipad would look amazing. For years it was Crestron and AMX with the tablet market for touch screens, then a couple of nice models recently from Philips but with extortionate prices!!
 
Coincidentally I read this during a break in programming a Nevo touchscreen for one of my customers. I never really had a problem configuring Sky control with these things. One main page and two sub pages; one for the key pad and the other for special features always seemed to work well for my customers and me.

iPad integration was inevitable. The idea of EPG control without dropping out of the the TV programme is good. The article speculates about IR vs IP control, concluding that it will be IP simply because there's no IR output. But to me IP control IP is essential if the channel guide meta data is to updated dynamically on the iPad.

What I'm waiting for though is to see what the actual response time is. These apps are all well and good if they are constantly awake, but so often that is not the case. The iPad has to be woken, unlocked, app loaded, then negotiate with the router before finally allowing some control over the device. It's cool when it works but it takkes a long time to get there... lol :D

It's still not the same as having the fully integrated system control of a Pronto, Nevo or the bigger AMX and Crestron systems, but anything that gives people a taste of what might be achieved with a proper control system is welcome all the same.
 
lucid said:
I never really had a problem configuring Sky control with these things. One main page and two sub pages; one for the key pad and the other for special features always seemed to work well for my customers and me.
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That's because it was two pages :D

I went all out and used actual logos for the channels and divided them up into their own categories like Sky itself. Sky 1, BBC1 etc fell under entertainment, Sports under sports and so on. To enable the icon to switch to that station you had to first learn the keypad 0-9 and then use that to configure the icon along with a delay between each number. i.e 1 delay 0.3sec 2 delay 0.3sec 3 delay 0.3sec. Do this for pretty much the entire Sky listing results in little time to live your life :D

Hardest thing to design when it comes to touch screen remote interfaces is trying to make it easier to use than the main remote itself. My remote also had buttons that allow you to jump to other screens and vice versa rather than scrolling through everything. If i was on Sky sports section and I wanted to go to Music, I could do so but it meant you had to go that extra mile when designing. Worst thing is I don't even use it anymore :rolleyes:

Definitely time consuming if you want it to look the part and be functional.
 
Yeah, you really can't do any remote that makes extensive use of the numbers on a single page. Like you, I prefer a button jump to sub pages. The neatest one I did had flyout tabs on the left and right sides of the screen for numbers and specials i.e. Sky pin, favourites, TV aspect ratio etc.

There's been a few times I have been asked to put all the Sky pages on a remote. I refuse. Sorry, but when Sky adds new channels and it means rejigging page after page after page... no thanks.. lol. That's what the EPG is for.

I had a really nice compliment from a client recently. They had had a touch screen for 7 years programmed by the original installers. The wife wasn't enamoured, and the kids always considered it "Dad's remote". I left them my first working draft of the new programming for a couple of weeks. When I returned to get their feedback the Mrs picked it up and started talking about "our remote". You know you're doing something right when that happens :D

Programming is definitely a skill. The hardest part though isn't the software, it's understanding people and how they want a system to work.
 
Would be nice of Sky to acknowledge that not everyone loves the fruit products and the Android exists and is well used.

Am still waiting to be able to get Sky Go on my Galaxy 10.1......

Come on Sky...love the green robot
 
Shelster said:
Would be nice of Sky to acknowledge that not everyone loves the fruit products and the Android exists and is well used.

Am still waiting to be able to get Sky Go on my Galaxy 10.1......

Come on Sky...love the green robot
Click to expand...

I agree. I have a HP touchpad running android and to have it as a remote running my sky HD box and my media centre too would be amazing
 
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