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[WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - Printable Version

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+---- Thread: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC (/showthread.php?tid=38333)

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RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - miljbee - 2013-02-27

(2013-02-27, 21:25)coolasice Wrote: so using yours it will make sounds every time the remote is disconnected and reconnedted?

I run it on a standalone server which has no soundcard nor speakers. So I can't tell you for sure ! Just try it ....
What I can tell you is that the code doesn't' contains any line aimed at silencing device insertion/remove events.

Also, PS3RemoteSleep scan for nearby Bluetooth devices during 1s on each run to find the BT Address of the remote.
If you launch BDRemoteSleep with the BT Address of the remote as a parameter, the scan won't occur. So BDRemoteSleep can run 1s faster !

But Honestly, from now, PS3RemoteSleep seems better because it won't cause any window to appear when running. This prevents some focus problem with other programs that might be running on the same machine (ie XBMC ...).


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - coolasice - 2013-02-28

(2013-02-27, 22:09)miljbee Wrote:
(2013-02-27, 21:25)coolasice Wrote: so using yours it will make sounds every time the remote is disconnected and reconnedted?

I run it on a standalone server which has no soundcard nor speakers. So I can't tell you for sure ! Just try it ....
What I can tell you is that the code doesn't' contains any line aimed at silencing device insertion/remove events.

Also, PS3RemoteSleep scan for nearby Bluetooth devices during 1s on each run to find the BT Address of the remote.
If you launch BDRemoteSleep with the BT Address of the remote as a parameter, the scan won't occur. So BDRemoteSleep can run 1s faster !

But Honestly, from now, BDRemoteSleep seems better because it won't cause any window to appear when running. This prevents some focus problem with other programs that might be running on the same machine (ie XBMC ...).

how can you run xbmc without speakers? kind of hard to listen to movies/music without sound? what about popup baloons? (device disconnected/reconnected) PS3remotesleep runs in background, does not interfere with xbmc, been using it for about a year now...


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - miljbee - 2013-02-28

... and it has no screen !

so obviously, XBMC isn't running on this machine.


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - miljbee - 2013-03-04

Here is PS3BluMote 2.0.4 :
Download It !

This new release brings hibernation feature. Original features have been left untouched (Except logging !)

It can run while eg is running with the PS3Remote plugin. It won't affect the functionnalities of the PS3Remote plugin.

When PS3BluMote is running, it will receive all the keypress from the remote. Each time it receives a keypress from the remote, it will restart it's internal hibernation timer. Once the hibernation timer expires PS3BluMote will hibernate the remote.
When hibernating the remote, it will disable device connected/disconnected sounds, and restore them when the remote will be reconnected.

The method used to hibernate the remote is the same used in BDRemoteSleep and PS3RemoteSleep. If you are familiar with these tools, you know that this method might take some time (up to 20s). While the remote is being hibernated, neither EG nor PS3Blumote will be able to receive keypress.

To setup PS3BluMote :
If you are upgrading from a previous version, backup your settings before upgrading. The upgrade shouldn't affect them, ... but who knows !
To backup your settings, simply go to the settings screen of PS3BluMote, click the blue link to open the log/settings folder and backup the files you will find here.
Close PS3BluMote (right click in the system tray/Exit)

Extract the content of the archive to a folder
Make sure your remote is paired, working and not hibernated (press any key on it)
Launch PS3BluMote.exe

By default, Hibernation is disabled, because it needs the btAddress of the remote to work.
Open the settings (right click the PS3BluMote icon on the system tray then settings).

On the settings screen, the field BT Address should contain the BTAddress of your remote. If the discovery is still running, the field contains "Searching" and is disabled. In this case wait for the discovery to finish.
If the discovery process returns only one address, The bt address field will auto fill with that address, else, it will be blank, and you will have to use the dropdown to access available addresses.

Once a correct value is set for the BTAddress, the hibernation checkbox will be enabled and you will be able to check it. Once checked, Hibernation is active. If you left the default 3 minutes for the delay, your remote will be hibernated 3 minutes later if you don't press any key on it. The timer restarts to 0 if you change the delay.

Once the remote is hibernated, the Tray icon of the PS3BluMote App becomes light Blue.

Please Note that at the moment, PS3BluMote can work with only one remote at a time.
If you have several remotes connected, use BDRemoteSleep to hibernate them selectively.
If you change the vid/pid, you will have to restart the application.

It has been tested on Win7 x64 with and without the sp1, with the Ms BT Stack and Widcomm.
I only own the old remote so I have no idea of what will happen with the new one.

Full source code available on GitHub

Let me know how it works with your setup !


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - miljbee - 2013-03-04

(2013-03-04, 16:27)Christo0pher Wrote: I love tinkering with this shit though, the wife on the other hand does not seem to be imnpressed.ImageImage
Same problem here !


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - rbroders - 2013-03-08

I tried the new PS3BluMote and I haven't been able to get the hibernate to work. On the setting screen, the BTAddress field says "Searching" forever, and hibernate is grayed out.

I had some trouble pairing so I uninstalled BluSoleil BT crap that came with the computer and replaced the batteries on my remote. It has paired successfully (and I know the BTAddress),

BluMote is working - I assigned A to Eject, and it emits a's when I press Eject.

I have un-paired and started BluMote and repaired, but still nothing but Searching.

Any Ideas? I'm running Win7 x64 SP1. I even tried running PS3BluMote in elevated mode.


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - miljbee - 2013-03-08

Could you please check the debug checkbox, restart the program, wait a few minutes, close it, and send me the log.txt at miljbeeatgmaildotcom.

If you don't want to debug and know for sure the bt address of your remote, simply close the program, open the settings.ini file and put your address in <btaddress></btaddress>.

When restarting the program, you shoud be able to enable hibernation.


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - therock003 - 2013-03-19

Is 2.04.0 the latest bluemote version? Now that hibernation is achievable, does that mean that battery is drained at the same rate as the ps3 drains it? Cause i have one ps3 remote for my PS3 and one for my PC. the one on my PS3 takes months to drain the battery, and the one i use for the PC, requires much less than a week. Is this solved now?

Also i read on the first post about holding the ps home button for some seconds to deactivate the controller. Does that mean, it manual goes to hibernation, or does it disconnect it? Cause i tried it, but on the properties it still shows it as connected.


Re: RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - jap2slow - 2013-03-20

(2013-03-19, 00:43)therock003 Wrote: Is 2.04.0 the latest bluemote version? Now that hibernation is achievable, does that mean that battery is drained at the same rate as the ps3 drains it? Cause i have one ps3 remote for my PS3 and one for my PC. the one on my PS3 takes months to drain the battery, and the one i use for the PC, requires much less than a week. Is this solved now?

Also i read on the first post about holding the ps home button for some seconds to deactivate the controller. Does that mean, it manual goes to hibernation, or does it disconnect it? Cause i tried it, but on the properties it still shows it as connected.

It shows as connected but the connection is not kept activated.
I searched this yesterday and tried to see what happens.
With active connection my BT dongle blinks constantly, after pressing PS button for 6 seconds the dongle is constant on(means in rest)


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - therock003 - 2013-03-20

Yes it seems that way. Now on 2.04 with hibernation being supported, when i hold the PS button the blumote turns light blue which means that it goes into power saving indeed. But i saw a video somewhere on youtube where the guy pressed the ps button and it showed the controller as disconnected on the bluetooth properties. And i thought i was doing something wrong when mine didnt behave this way...


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - miljbee - 2013-03-26

Holding the ps button for more than 6s effectively put the remote in standby.

Honestly, I can't tell if this causes the bluetooth link to be closed or put into sniff mode.

Windows abstract all this and I don't think it's easy to retrieve the real state of the bluetooth link programmatically.
The old widcomm stack provides some ways to retrieve this information, but it's a real pain to set it up on win 7.

Reguarding PS3Blumote, when you press the PS Button for more than 6s, the icon turns light blue to reflect the low power mode, but in fact PS3BluMote don't know for sure. It's just a timer that starts when the PS Button is down and expires 6s later if the PS button hasn't been released.

But now that PS3BluMote can hibernate the remote by itself, I don't see any reason to keep using the ps button to hibernate the remote.
Just set up a short delay for the hibernation timer, and increase it if you happen to use the remote while it is being hibernated.

The default value of 3 minutes is in fact too short I Think. Personnaly, I have set up 6 minutes, and haven't been bothered since that.


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - therock003 - 2013-03-29

Is holding the PS button to deactivate the remote a windows function, a blumote function or is it simply programmed to the controller internally? I guess it must be the latter.

So you mean that different stacks act differently? It doesnt have to do with the chip the dongles use, but with the stack they're running on that cause different behavior?

BTW is the battery remaining feature accurate? How do you get battery readings for bluetooth devices??


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - miljbee - 2013-03-29

(2013-03-29, 00:37)therock003 Wrote: Is holding the PS button to deactivate the remote a windows function, a blumote function or is it simply programmed to the controller internally? I guess it must be the latter.
Yes, it's a function of the remote, and that's why nobody has managed to reproduce the exact same behaviour from within windows.

(2013-03-29, 00:37)therock003 Wrote: So you mean that different stacks act differently?
Good question !
Short Answer : Yes, but it doesn't matter since the only available BT Stack on Win 7+ is the Ms BT Stack
Long Answer : Bluetooth stacks offers there own API, and might implement some common functionnalities differently internally.
On Win7+, Ms doesn't allow the use of a BT Stack from third party companies like Broadcom or BlueSoleil. Some hacks exists to allow this, but they might cause more problem than solutions. Althought the core bluetooth stack can not be modified on Win7+, Additionnal Bluetooth profiles can be added. That's what Widcomm and BlueSoleil actually provide.
The problem here is that the Ms BT Stack abstracts everything and the provided API are really poor and limited. For instance, there isn't any way to set the link policy programmatically.

(2013-03-29, 00:37)therock003 Wrote: It doesnt have to do with the chip the dongles use, but with the stack they're running on that cause different behavior?
Like every piece of hardware, the device and its driver must work together. If for some reason a BT chip doesn't handle correctly some functionnality supported by the MsBT Stack, There will be problems. Considering the price of a bluetooth dongle, I Highly recommend buying one from a serious brand (Asus, Belkin, Toshiba, ...)

(2013-03-29, 00:37)therock003 Wrote: BTW is the battery remaining feature accurate? How do you get battery readings for bluetooth devices??
- It only reports by 20% steps.
- With rechargeable batteries, I can tell it's really inaccurate. Recently, I had problems with my remote which I solved by replacing the batteries. The remote was reporting 80% for the battery level.


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - therock003 - 2013-03-29

(2013-03-29, 10:47)miljbee Wrote: Good question !
Short Answer : Yes, but it doesn't matter since the only available BT Stack on Win 7+ is the Ms BT Stack
Long Answer : Bluetooth stacks offers there own API, and might implement some common functionnalities differently internally.
On Win7+, Ms doesn't allow the use of a BT Stack from third party companies like Broadcom or BlueSoleil. Some hacks exists to allow this, but they might cause more problem than solutions. Althought the core bluetooth stack can not be modified on Win7+, Additionnal Bluetooth profiles can be added. That's what Widcomm and BlueSoleil actually provide.
The problem here is that the Ms BT Stack abstracts everything and the provided API are really poor and limited. For instance, there isn't any way to set the link policy programmatically.

Even so it still feels strange to me. I got 2 different dongles on 2 different computers, both of them though with CSR chip, and both operating with only the Microsoft stack (Havent installed Widcomm/BlueSoleil or whatever else 3rd party is out there, not that it matters though cause they're not supported as you said) but one reports if device is disconnected, and the other shows its always connected, even if its not, and even if the dongle is not present. So actually its not doing any work at all. The one that does even runs on Win 7 which is older than the other on Win 8.

(2013-03-29, 10:47)miljbee Wrote: - It only reports by 20% steps.
- With rechargeable batteries, I can tell it's really inaccurate. Recently, I had problems with my remote which I solved by replacing the batteries. The remote was reporting 80% for the battery level.

Yes i kinda figured as much. I have one remote on a computer, and for one week now it still shows 100%, and another one that is running longer than that and is showing 80%. Is MS BT APi still the culprit here? Cause Inside the PS3 the readings are accurate even for these rechargeable batteries i've been using.

Also on the remote with 80% Battery Lately i've been getting longer response times, and i dont know if its the battery being more drained than it reporrts, or the controller getting hibernated, (although it happesn after the controller is woken up, after i pressed a couple of buttons), or possibly due to obstacles. I know that Bluetooth doesnt nesecerily need direct contact like other legacy wireleess comms (IR) but sometimes use the controller under the sheets and i wonder if that could be a problem with signale getting weaker, and taking longer to carry out.


RE: [WINDOWS] HOW-TO setup Sony PS3 Bluetooth Remote Control to work with XBMC - miljbee - 2013-03-29

(2013-03-29, 11:20)therock003 Wrote: Even so it still feels strange to me. I got 2 different dongles on 2 different computers, both of them though with CSR chip, and both operating with only the Microsoft stack (Havent installed Widcomm/BlueSoleil or whatever else 3rd party is out there, not that it matters though cause they're not supported as you said) but one reports if device is disconnected, and the other shows its always connected, even if its not, and even if the dongle is not present. So actually its not doing any work at all. The one that does even runs on Win 7 which is older than the other on Win 8.
Sorry, I won't be able to help here. I just can tell you that I have 2 remotes (the old ones) tested with 2 computers (Win7 x64 with and without SP1) and 3 BT dongles, and haven't experienced your problems.

(2013-03-29, 11:20)therock003 Wrote: Yes i kinda figured as much. I have one remote on a computer, and for one week now it still shows 100%, and another one that is running longer than that and is showing 80%. Is MS BT APi still the culprit here? Cause Inside the PS3 the readings are accurate even for these rechargeable batteries i've been using.
No, the MS BT Stack can't be the culprit. The battery level is reported by the remote inside the Bytes sent when a key is pressed.
If you find that the reported battery level is better on the PS3, then, there might be some filtering/adjustements that are made inside the PS3 before displaying it.

(2013-03-29, 11:20)therock003 Wrote: Also on the remote with 80% Battery Lately i've been getting longer response times, and i dont know if its the battery being more drained than it reporrts, or the controller getting hibernated, (although it happesn after the controller is woken up, after i pressed a couple of buttons), or possibly due to obstacles. I know that Bluetooth doesnt nesecerily need direct contact like other legacy wireleess comms (IR) but sometimes use the controller under the sheets and i wonder if that could be a problem with signale getting weaker, and taking longer to carry out.

When the remote sleeps and you press a key on it, there is an added delay before PS3BluMote gets the button code. Probably because the btlink state changes. I am not sure but it seems that this delay is longer if the remote is far from the BT dongle.

If the remote is awake, I never get any delay. Even when far from the BT Dongle (But I admit I haven't tried it outside !)


Finally, from what you wrote, I understand that you have a PS3. Have you tried to completely shut it down to be sure that your problems aren't related ?