this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2026
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and how will you control it with the TV remote? don't say to use the mouse and keyboard from the couch because then I rather won't turn it on at all
My wife and i sewed a pocket into our couch. We used to hold a TV remote there, now we have the laptop's wireless mouse and charging cable in there.
It seems silly for all of a week, and then its just part of the routine
to me the reason I don't want a mouse is I need to move it on some surface for it to work, and even then it's handling is much less accurate than at the desk, and its a chore to target that little button on the screen. from this point keyboard based navigation would work better, in apps that implement it well. I can imagine using a keyboard, but most other people I know would not accept that, because it's too big.
so far the best option I heard is a normal TV remote but with a keypad and trackpad on the back. but do those work with IR, are the signals of these buttons standardized?
Use Kodi and it will respond to HDMI-CEC. Works a treat with my LG.
Get a media TV remote and a USB IR receiver.
Edit: I wrote Bluetooth when I meant USB
It is clear until that point, but how do you set up full control with that? afaik by default nothing listens to the input events generated by the IR receiver
Well, certain inputs like will map directly to keyboard equivalents. The OK button generally maps to . And then other inputs like play/pause, volume, skip forward/backward are standard PC inputs that just about every OS supports out of the box. Most keyboards have those buttons on them and they "just work".
For additional functionality you can use specialized software to manage it.
The IR receiver is just a "translator". The input the computer sees is just a standard HID peripheral (Human Input Device).
Sounds like a you problem, sometimes you gotta live different if you don't wanna be tracked.
my solution is smart TV with restricted VLAN. then it can use jellyfin or whatever I feel like. but I can't recommend that to the average joe, who does not even have any network equipment capable of restricting a port to a VLAN.
Seriously. any recommendation that does not solve this problem is at most a tech demo. remote control, preferably without the fragile smartphone. and no airmouse, that's terrible even on my LG TV. hardware side it's simple, get an USB IR receiver, or use the HDMI-CEC signals coming from the TV. but there is nothing to tie it into the linux desktop.
I use Plasma Big screen and have a remote sized keyboard with trackpad. The arrow keys are usually all you need, but the rest is there if you do need it.
now that is interesting. does it work with IR, or wifi/bluetooth only? if IR, are the signals of these buttons standardized, so that I can expect it to work well if I order one?
RF USB Dongle, it shows up as a keyboard.
It’s this one here
https://www.newegg.ca/visiontek-candyboard-keyboard-with-touchpad-and-built-in-ir-remote-900507-usb-rf-wireless/p/N82E16823852004
That's a bit uncalled for, don't you think?
I just used a mini pc to create a seperate network, then blocked internet for TV network. Then i setup microsocks and made an exception for that proxy and jellyfin. This way I can use smartube (it has a proxy option) for youtube and jellyfin for other media without logging in or providing internet access to anything on the TV.