Lovelace: Firemote Card - Remote controls for Amazon Fire / Android devices

Hi everyone.
I congratulate you on this beautiful card.
I have a 2017 shield TV and I would like to use this type of card but I have some problems.
The shield has been recognized by home assistant and I can turn it on and off. I installed the card but when I click on any key it appears adb command failed, service not found. do I need to install anything else?

Grazie Stefano

This is a great integration/card. Thank you.

I am using it with the ONN. (Walmart) 4k with Google TV. The Chromecast remote only worked with the power and volume buttons - but when I switched the remote to the Apple TV remote (with all other settings remaining as they were) everything worked perfectly. Thanks again.

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I’ve been using this as our main remote on a dedicated 8” tablet for a month or so now and it really is great. However, it’s not passing the wife test due to the lag on commands going to the fire tv. Randomly, but regularly it’ll stop responding (sometimes, but not every time) an error pops up at the bottom of the screen mentioning adb and a device not responding) for about ten seconds. During this time commands going through my BroadLink rm work instantly so it’s only the adb stuff that’s affected. Am I right in thinking this is a fire tv/adb problem? If so, any recommendations for a fire tv replacement? I need 4k and Plex, YouTube apps as a minimum. Amazon prime app would be a bonus. Cheers, Steve

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Glad to hear it @thos-edison!

The ONN device will be included in the Vote for what gets added next! poll over in discussion #41 after the upcoming release of Roku support. I might just choose it myself because they are relatively inexpensive and there is a Wal-Mart just up the road from me.

I’d love to have you as a beta tester when the ONN gets to that point!

I have 2 ONN. devices and a genuine Chromecast HD and prefer the ONN. One of the ONN. devices is connected to an HDMI capture device so I can watch “TV in a window” using MPC-BE (a Windows media player). Having the luxury of a wide-screen display and being able to watch and control the TV from the PC instead of the physical remote was the icing on the cake.

I wanted just the remote to show, so I created a dashboard containing only the remote. I then used CMDOW, a Windows program, to resize the whole page, when it was called up, to a convenient size and move the dashboard containing the remote to a convenient location next to the TV window. I use Windows batch files to do it all every time I click the “TV On” button (courtesy of X-Widget). When I click “TV Off”, the TV window spins around a couple of times and collapses vertically to just a horizontal bar (X-Widget again) and the remote goes away. It all works - somehow. :man_shrugging: (Sorry for all the detail - I just wanted to show how your card was integrated and how versatile something as simple as a single card can be.)

I’d be glad to beta test ONN. device support any time.
Thanks again for contributing this superb addition to my Home Assistant installation!
TE

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Your card in action.

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Announcement

Support for Roku has just been added!!
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/firemote-now-supports-roku/678967

That’s so cool! I think it would make a great addition over in the Let’s See Your Dashboards! discussion in the Firemote Github page!

@efiniste,

Wow! Fun question!

I’ve noticed a similar issue with my ADB connected devices in the recent weeks. I don’t know exactly why it is happening, but I agree… it’s not great.

You are correct with your assessment that it is likely an ADB / Device connection issue. Firemote relies fully on underlying Home Assistant integrations to function. If those integrations are flaky, Firemote will reflect that. (more info about that here)

Since the Home Assistant project added the Android TV Remote integration, many Firemote commands that could only be sent through ADB now have an alternate path to choose. In most cases, the Android TV Remote integration shows faster response time. The downside here is that in all Android based devices, Firemote still requires the ADB integration. Additionally, Amazon Fire devices are NOT capable of using the Android TV Remote integration, so with your device, there is no work-around.

When looking for a replacement device, there are many to choose from! If you want to continue using a Firemote card to drive your media player, take a look at the prerequisites section in the Firemote documentation to see a list of devices that currently have support. Upcoming device support is mainly driven by community input in a discussion called Poll: Vote for what gets added next! I just released Roku support last night, so in a few days this poll will be reset and the community will start the voting process again. I suspect that the ONN device might get a lot of votes once it’s added to the poll.

You mentioned that application availability is important for you, and I happen to have a chart of the existing Firemote App Launchers in the Firemote Wiki that you might find useful. If you find your required app(s) on the list and they have a check mark in the box, then you can be assured that you’re good to go! If an app isn’t on the list it doesn’t always mean that Firemote cannot launch it, it could just mean that nobody has opened a App Shortcut Request for it yet.

As far as my opinion goes, this is my personal recommendation list:

  1. NVIDIA Shield
    • Fast! Uses ADB and Android TV Remote integration
    • Supports Firemote popup keyboard
    • Supports “Find My Remote”
    • Supports Sideloaded Apps
    • Great image quality
  2. Chromecast
    • Fast! Uses ADB and Android TV Remote integration
    • Supports Firemote popup keyboard
    • Supports Sideloaded Apps
    • Relatively inexpensive

If you have questions about any of the others, I can probably help you out. I only release support for device families that I own or can personally test, so that means I have a pile of them that I frequently interact with. (it gets expensive!)

I hope this helps!

-Doug

Thanks for the response @crdougn

Do you still see the ADB lag when using the Nvidia Shield? They’re expensive but I don’t mind shelling out for one if it’s going to minimise the lag problems.
I’m not asking for a guarantee of no problems btw, my initial reason for posing the question was to get some real world feedback on the various devices so I can pick the best option.

Steve

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There is a significant lag when using ADB with the Shield, but also using the Android TV Remote integration at the same time completely eliminates the lag. It’s nearly instantaneous.

Configuration is simple after adding both integrations, you just choose them from the dropdowns in the Firemote UI

**Edit
@efiniste ~ This just came up in a reddit thread if you are interested in reading it: https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/19eol16/comment/kjh6oiv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

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Hi! I’m looooving this card but I’m facing a BIG (for me) issue. Whenever I try to use the background color on a custom launch, it just doesn’t work, it just sets to black (or gray?) as showed below:

- type: custom:firemote-card
  entity: media_player.tvn_gimnasio
  device_family: chromecast
  device_type: chromecast-4k
  compatibility_mode: default
  use_theme_background: true
  custom_launchers:
    - friendly_name: Netflix
      label: netflix
      image_path: "/local/data/images/App_logos/NetflixLogo.png"
      background: '#ffffff'
      service: media_player.select_source
      target:
        device_id: ebd3971e2c2a4280134c6e34b3fffca3
      data:
        source: Netflix
    - friendly_name: Youtube
      label: youtube
      image_path: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Youtube_logo.png
      background: 'white'
      service: media_player.select_source
      target:
        device_id: ebd3971e2c2a4280134c6e34b3fffca3
      data:
        source: YouTube

And also a question, is there a way to channge the remote’s stock buttons (trying to get rid of the keyboard one), thanks

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@josalebe - Not a fan of the artwork I chose, eh? :slight_smile:

Thanks for letting me know about this! I found a bug that was causing this issue, and it will be fixed in the next Firemote release.

If you’d like to remove the keyboard button, you can add this bit of YAML to the config:

button_overrides:
  keyboard-button:
    hidden: true

If you didn’t want to remove the button but you just wanted to change the icon, that feature is not available yet. Issue #295 was opened by another user asking the same thing, so you can follow the progress there.

Please note: For faster response time from me, please use the Firemote discussions board or open a request in the Firemote Issues board

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@josalebe ~ The background color issue is resolved in the latest Firemote version v3.2.2. Enjoy!

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@crdougn Just to circle back on this. Got a Shield Pro today. Lag is completely gone. Thanks for your help, Doug.

Steve

Edit: next request. What do I need to change in the “long press” code for the shield? I’ve changed the target entity id but it’s not working so I’m guessing the command is different.

Apologies ~ I think I’m missing some context. What are you wanting to do?

@crdougn Sorry Doug, my fault. I was referencing something I thought you’d helped with earlier in this thread but it was actually over on github. Closed issue #270. Simulating a long press of the ok button.
Can that be done on the Shield?

Oh! Of course! Thanks for the reminder.

I’ve added instructions for your shield into the re-opened discussion #270, and I will likely update the simulate a long press event entry in the Firemote Wiki as well after we confirm that my new solution works for you.

Works perfectly with a minor tweak. I’ve replied on GitHub. Thanks Doug.

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Hello, I have the card configured, several keys work. My TV has integrated Android, it works as an “Amazon Fire” family and a “JVC 4K …” model. It is a Td System K50DLJ10US, the “Android TV Remote” app does not work.
Some launcher like VLC works but I can’t run Netflix, I see that the application that is launched from the card is com.netflix.ninja but the application on my TV is com.netflix.mediaclient
I have tried starting from the shell, via home assistant adb command, through the mobile application, … it gives me several errors, it seems to have to do with the specific path.
I have reviewed several links linked in the documentation, read forums, but I am dizzy and lost, can you guide me on what I can do or help me? what I see in the dumps doesn’t work for me

All the best.