Remoku - A Web App for remote control of Roku Players
http://remoku.tv
Copyright 2010, A. Cassidy Napoli(napoli@apps4tv.com). All rights reserved. See source for License.

What it does:

• Control a Roku SMP over a local area network.
• Supports all physical buttons found on the newer Roku remotes (Back, Home, Up, Down, Left, Right, OK, Instant Replay, Info, Rev, Play/Pause, Fwd).
• Supports direct text entry.
• Works on recent versions of most major browsers: Chrome, Firefox 3.6.12, Safari 5.0.2, Mobile Safari/iOS devices(specfically tested iPhone4/ iOS 4.1), and Internet Explorer 8.0.7600(although it's ugly). Opera and Android devices are untested but expected to work (feedback welcome).
• Supports the application cache feature of html5. This means that browsers that support application cache will store the whole web app locally and if my site is unavailable, your remote will still work!

What it doesn't:

• No auto-detect of Rokus. I'm working on a primitive detection routine, but Javascript is limited in this area.
• No support for multiple Rokus. This will be available in the future.
• No direct launching of apps. The apps list isn't currently directly retrievable via Javascript. A workaround may be possible.
• No advertising.

Requirements: Modern browser with Javascript and cookies turned on.
Instructions: Browse to remoku.tv and simply provide the local ip address* of a Roku on startup(or afterwards on the Config screen) and click "Remote".

It still needs some basic polish, but it works well enough for me at this point that I'd like to hear feedback. Please keep in mind that this is a piece of hobby work, and that the deliberate choice I made to use pure html, css, and Javascript code limits the possibility of certain functionality I wish I could enable. It should, however, allow anyone with a semi-modern browser to use the new buttons and enter text more easily than with a traditional remote.

If you want something more full featured and own an iPhone or Android device, I highly recommend the impressive DVPRemote and Android Roku Remote, both now available with updates for the new ECP remote functionality. The developers have done excellent work and the apps are both worth the price.

I'm using a simplified BSD license, so developers should be free to incorporate it into their projects, commercial or not(for example, Roku could freely include a modified version as a hosted page within the Roku Player). If anyone is interested in contributing code or style improvements, they would be most welcome. Let me know if you are interested, and we'll work out how to incorporate your contribution. All of the source is visible as html, css, and js files.

*Note: no information is sent outside your network. Your browser makes a direct connection to your Roku and that is the only communication taking place in this app. The source code is fully visible for anyone to review.

Nice! Only thing I'd like to see different is the button graphics... maybe you could use the remote image available here instead? http://www.roku.com/Libraries/Roku_Play ... .sflb.ashx

TheEndless wrote:

Nice! Only thing I'd like to see different is the button graphics... maybe you could use the remote image available here instead? http://www.roku.com/Libraries/Roku_Play ... .sflb.ashx

Thanks, and re: the button graphics: me too . I'm terrible with design and layout. Thanks for the link.

Mostly works for me. Sometimes it ignores "button presses" and sometimes it goes wild and just repeats the last "button press" over and over until you click on another button.

RoadRanger wrote:

Mostly works for me. Sometimes it ignores "button presses" and sometimes it goes wild and just repeats the last "button press" over and over until you click on another button.

Yeah, I don't have a reliable way to detect if the command has been received by the Roku, so button presses that come too close together can get lost. I *think* I can fix the repeat problem for most, if not all, cases.

RoadRanger wrote:

Mostly works for me. Sometimes it ignores "button presses" and sometimes it goes wild and just repeats the last "button press" over and over until you click on another button.

+1

Neat I can tell my Friend that is too lazy to get another Roku remote.

He somehow lost his. Like him and his wife moved places and couldn't find it.

Now he can't decide if he wants another remote or a Harmony remote.

Worked beautifully.

Thank you very much for a great app.

gonzotek: It is amazing how similar this is to what I have been working on this week. Since what I wrote only works on Webkit browsers (Chrome, Safari, Arora, etc.), I am interested in to see how your javascript works.

Crow550: A network based remote will only help your friend as long as the Roku networking is working and he knows what the IP of the Roku is. Otherwise, it is still helpful to have a real remote available to trouble network issues.

i noticed that the symbol "/" cant be used from the keyboard screen.

also it would be good to be able to paste into the box and hit enter to load that as well...

this will work great with the new channel i added, instead of typing the long address with the remote they could do it from here, but the paste would make it awesome together.


viewtopic.php?f=28&t=33646

needs a "clear" feature for the search. Because when I press backspace and held it, it didn't delete all the character on the screen. But its a nice remote.

fluke wrote:

gonzotek: It is amazing how similar this is to what I have been working on this week. Since what I wrote only works on Webkit browsers (Chrome, Safari, Arora, etc.), I am interested in to see how your javascript works.

Crow550: A network based remote will only help your friend as long as the Roku networking is working and he knows what the IP of the Roku is. Otherwise, it is still helpful to have a real remote available to trouble network issues.

I know. I guess he is finally gonna get a classic Roku remote.

He is gonna borrow my remote to set up the box and then use the website till the remote comes. Better bring my remote back.

Now would be a good time to buy a 12 button remote.

The good thing about this ap though is it will help people who don't have the 12 button move the channels at least.

The second good thing is I can really freak my family out with it. They have no idea what torment awaits. Using the wi-fi I can control this thing from across the street.

mkiker2089 wrote:

Now would be a good time to buy a 12 button remote.

The good thing about this ap though is it will help people who don't have the 12 button move the channels at least.

The second good thing is I can really freak my family out with it. They have no idea what torment awaits. Using the wi-fi I can control this thing from across the street.

I showed him the extra buttons. He wasn't impressed.

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions, I think there are some really good ones! I'll try to put together a todo list based off of them and see what I can knock off.