XMote

XMote - XBMC Remote Control

Available: 15th September 2008

Native iPhone WiFi Remote for XBMC. Use your iPhone/Ipod Touch as a replacement remote control for Xbox Media Center running on Windows, Mac, Linux or the original Xbox. Also works on compatible XBMC forks, including Boxee and Plex.

See a video of XMote here.

PLEASE NOTE: There is a small bug that will crash XMote when the cover art changes for playing music. Changing the capture mode to "Always" will work around this issue. Thanks to Allan for finding this. I will have a fix for this XMote 1.8 that will be released soon.

Features:

  • Shows Currently Playing media (and current time/duration).
  • Shows Filename (for pictures and video).
  • Shows Album, Artist and Song for music.
  • Shows Album Art for music, if available.
  • Shows thumbnails for currently displayed picture.
  • Shows screen capture of currently playing video.
  • Configurable host/port (with Authentication) via Settings.
  • Configurable polling interval.
  • Features most of the buttons from the original Xbox DVD Remote Control.
  • Page Up/Page Down Buttons for navigating large lists.
  • Modify the Volume via a Slider.
  • Hide the remote control buttons to see thumbnails/screen capture.
  • Seek within the currently playing media.
  • Keyboard for entering text.
  • Zoom buttons for Pictures.
  • Browse and queue media on your device.
  • Wake on Lan (WOL) support. Enter MAC address in settings in xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx format to send magic packet to host when attempting to connect.

    Update 1.7 (June 2010 2009):

  • UTF Support
  • Better screen capture support for all the capture modes: Standard, Idle and Always

    Update 1.6 (January 2009):

  • Authentication Bug Fix, which wasn't fixed in XMote 1.5
  • Fixed crashing on updating of XBMC instance settings.
  • Removed code using private APIs

    Update 1.5 (November 2009):

  • Wake-on-Lan support added.
  • Authentication Bug Fix
  • Small logic fixes with background capture

    Update 1.4 (September 2009):

  • Directional buttons reverted to Xbox Remote Control codes. This allows media seeking. 10 minutes back/forth with up and down. 30 seconds back/forth with left/right.
  • Spelling Fixes

    Update 1.3 (August 2009):

  • Media browsing.
  • Playlist management
  • Vibrate option for button clicks.
  • Plus and Minus buttons for zooming in/out of pictures.
  • Better memory management.
  • Settings now configured within the App.. not in Preferences.
  • French translation.
  • New icon and splash screen.

    Update 1.2 (5th February 2009):

  • Multiple Instances for XMote. Allows you to quickly switch between XBMC instances.
  • 3 Polling Modes: Standard, Capture When Idle, Always Capture

    Update 1.1 (22nd December 2008):

  • Added keyboard for text pop-ups.
  • Ability to seek the currently playing media.
  • Ability to define WiFi only for communications. Makes returning from Lock more stable.
  • No longer poll while locked.
  • Preferences Not Set warning. If you start XMote without entering settings on the preferences menu.
  • Authentication Failure warning. If XMote can connect to XMBC, but cannot authenticate.
  • Connection Lost to Host warning. If a webservice call fails, it will stop polling, until the user initiates an action.
  • Minor UI changes. Title now reads "XMote". Shows "Connecting..." in XMote when attempting to connect.

    Requirements:

  • XBMC (or compatible fork) Installed.
  • WiFi Access to the XBMC host.
  • Can successfully connect to the XBMC web interface in a browser.

    Tested with the following Equipment:

  • iPhone 3G
  • iPhone 3GS
  • XBMC on Original Xbox (Running XBMC 2.0.1)
  • XBMC on Windows XP (Running XBMC Atlantis Alpha 4)
  • XBMC on Ubuntu Linux Hardy Heron (Running XBMC Atlantis Alpha 4)
  • Plex on MacOSX
  • Boxee on MacOSX
  • Boxee on Ubuntu Linux Intrepid

    Confirmed to be working on the following forks of XBMC:

  • Plex
  • Boxee

    Known Issues:

  • Screen Capture (during video) will freeze playback momentarily on the Original Xbox. Recommended to increase video polling to a larger interval when using an Xbox. (This may happen on other hardware too, if the system is not fast enough)
  • At the time of writing, XBMC Linux doesn't seem to support Screen Capture via the API.
  • Some issues displaying Unicode strings
  • I have found with all Apps (including XMote) that they are sometimes corrupted during download. If you are experiencing weird application problems, such as crashing on startup, or hanging, please delete XMote and re-install from the Appstore. You will not be charge for downloading it again if you use the same iTunes account.
  • When navigating with XMote, some key presses are repeated and it skips positions in the list. In all occurences of this issue, the user has been using a non-release version of XBMC, or a SVN build. Installing a release version of XBMC should fix the problem.

    XMote Configuration

    From here you can configure the following settings:

  • Host or IP Address of your XBMC machine. (Don't include HTTP:// in the host string)
  • TCP Port of the XBMC web server.
  • Username for XBMC web server if required.
  • Passwod for the XBMC web server.
  • Standard Polling Interval (This is the interval that XMote uses to refresh Currently Playing information and Volume.
  • Video Polling Interval (This is the interval that XMote users to perform a screen shot of playing Video, based on the polling interval above).
  • MAC Address if you wish to use Wake On Lan events with your host.

    XMote Connection Problems?

  • Please make sure that your device is on the same network as your XBMC host.
  • Make sure that the XBMC web server is enabled.
  • Make sure that you can connect to the XBMC web server from a computer with a browser, and that you can connect with Safari from your device.

    XMote Translations

    Would you like to help out with translations of XMote into your own language?
    Please download the translation file     here. Change the text on the right-hand side. Post the contents back via the contact form below.

    Please contact me here with bug reports..