Bounty: Boxee/XBMC Bluetooth & Wi-Fi Controls

[Chris Price]

Hi everyone, as noted in the announcement, MechaWorks is sponsoring some Boxee and XBMC code development. We'll be releasing this code as open-source, and hope to check it in with the standard XBMC and Boxee code-bases.

So, this is a "feature request" but we're hoping talented people write the code to make it happen... we're putting money where our collective mouths are located.

Our first two Bounties are to add Bluetooth and Wi-Fi controls to Ubuntu-powered XBMC/Boxee installs. We're offering $500 for Bluetooth and $500 for Wi-Fi for a total of $1,000. This will make it much easier to manage Boxee on Ubuntu, since you won't have to exit the Boxee UI to change these settings.

Details for the bounty are located on the MechaWorks Crowdsourcing page. If you know someone talented in XBMC (or Boxee App Box) design, please pass this post on to them.

[Cacafuego]

This is a great idea!

I'd love to see a lot more of this sort of thing in the Open Source world.

[zeroibis]

Please update us if someone is making bluetooth support as I would love a bluetooth remote for boxee using a phone. I do not have or want to have a wifi network just for a remote control.

[dc2447]

I am confused by this, a bluetooth interface doesn't really have anything to do with xbmc or boxee.

Also there are many bluetooth remotes that will work already.

[dconti]

I am confused by this, a bluetooth interface doesn't really have anything to do with xbmc or boxee.

Also there are many bluetooth remotes that will work already.

I had the same thought re: bluetooth. For wifi there's no 'standard' approach for running HID commands over it, but it'd be pretty easy to do, document, and wire into lirc? Maybe that's what the OP wants?

[Fuzzgtp]

I'm not sure if they are going multiplatform but I know has to do with more than remotes. Gamecontrollers, headsets, options are endless really.

[dconti]

I'm not sure if they are going multiplatform but I know has to do with more than remotes. Gamecontrollers, headsets, options are endless really.

I think the point is that the support for input devices is pretty vast and happens way below the actual application. In the case of xbmc i'm guessing they talk to HID and talk to lirc and that's about it.

So the confusion here is when the OP is asking for bluetooth and wifi support for these apps, is he talking about extending the existing infrastructure to support some new scenarios, or something different?

[zeroibis]

I am confused by this, a bluetooth interface doesn't really have anything to do with xbmc or boxee.

Also there are many bluetooth remotes that will work already.

Where are you finding these, I have never seen an app that lets a phone use bluetooth as a remote. They all force you to use wifi. I have not seen anything that lets you control boxee from bluetooth.

[Chris Price]

There have been some applications such as Salling Clicker that do work over Bluetooth without depending on the HID profile.

To be clear though, we are not proposing a bounty for Boxee to add these kind of features.

Our bounty is for adding an interface to pair and manage Bluetooth HID and Wi-Fi AP settings from inside the App Box platform. This would allow you to pair remotes that use Bluetooth HID at the OS-level, and thus don't require any additional code to work in Boxee/XBMC. It would also enable you to set Wi-Fi hotspots, without ever leaving full screen mode.

[VeeDubb65]

...from inside the App Box platform...

That's the real point right there.

By doing this, a lot of users who currently run a window manager (gnome, xfce, etc) could skip it all together and just a run a basic xorg server and have boxee auto-launch.

This would be ideal for atom HTPC systems.