Remote Buddy Help > Hardware Preferences > Bluetooth receiver & Wii™ Remote

Remote Buddy supports several Bluetooth®-enabled remote controls. They connect to Remote Buddy through the Bluetooth® controller in your computer. Options that apply to all supported Blueooth® remote controls can be found in the Bluetooth® receiver's pane. Options specific to the respective Blueooth® remote can be found in their respective panes - a description of them follows further down below. Before a new Blueooth® remote control can be used with Remote Buddy, it needs to be paired using Remote Buddy's own setup wizard (see below).

Search for paired remotes on startup

Remote Buddy can automatically start searching for paired remotes after startup has finished. It will then automatically find remotes you previously paired without the need to go through the setup wizard again by pressing a special button combination on your remote control.

Display pairing instructions and status messages

Remote Buddy usually informs you about which buttons to press to connect your remote control to Remote Buddy, when it has connected to a remote control - and when it has failed to do so. You can disable these messages here.

Bluetooth® remotes need more energy than conventional IR remotes. It is thus essential to save energy whenever possible. Remote Buddy offers you a few ways to achieve this.

Automatically disconnect remotes after inactivity of more than XX minute(s)

When enabled, Remote Buddy will disconnect and power off your remote after no button has been pressed for the specified number of minutes.

Disconnect remotes when computer goes to sleep

When enabled, Remote Buddy will automatically disconnect and power off your remote as soon as the computer goes to sleep. You save energy, but you will no longer be able to wake up your computer with the Bluetooth® remote then.

Open setup wizard

A click on this button will launch Remote Buddy's setup wizard that will guide you through all steps necessary to pair your remote control with Remote Buddy. Pairing is necessary only once per Bluetooth® remote control.

Wii™ Remote

Remote Buddy supports all buttons (except the power button, for it is not available as button to the host computer) and the infrared camera of the remote to emulate a full blown mouse. It also adds a virtual keyboard to your system, so you can even type texts with your remote control from a distance. It is essential to understand, that the remote does not send infrared signals, but contains a camera to detect and track infrared hotspots. Thus, if you want to use the IR mouse mode, you need a punctual source of infrared light (like a tealight or a row of strong IR LEDs), so the position of the remote control can be tracked to realize the mouse. You'll find more information on this in the Remote Buddy FAQ.

Displays the current battery level of your remote control. Don't worry if its not at 100% even with freshly charged batteries. The maximum power level of batteries can vary greatly (as does their price).

Warning: Unless you have the specific problem with your remote control that you can not reach the edges of your screen via the mouse mode, do not use calibration.

This option does set the boundaries of the field of sight of your remote's infrared camera. This is solely a driver parameter and does not change anything in your remote at all. Consequently, calibration does not change the sensitivity of the infrared camera. If the mouse mode does not seem to work, your IR light source is either non-existant, not a spot or too weak. Calibration will not be able to change these basic physical requirements for the operation of the IR mouse mode.

Calibration helps you to define a new region of interest to the driver's tracker. If you have the problem, that the mouse mode generally works, but you have difficulties to reach the edges of your screen, press "Calibrate", then press any button and watch the "Infrared sensor monitor". Move your remote in a way so that the black part of that sensor monitor becomes as big as possible. The rectangle you define this way will be used to interpolate the coordinates of the infrared spots as detected by the remote control to your screen coordinates. If you do not see a red spot following your motions in the Infrared sensor monitor, your infrared light source is not detected as such by the remote.

Click on "Reset" to reset calibration results to factory defaults, which should work just fine in the big majority of usage scenarios for the remote.

Unpair this remote

Once paired, Remote Buddy will memorize your remote control and try to connect to it for as long as the Bluetooth Receiver is active. This costs CPU time and energy. So, if you no longer use a remote control you once paired, please unpair it on your last use. If you no longer have access to the remote control in question, you can remove it manually from the list of known devices in the Bluetooth pane of System Preferences to achieve the same effect.