Smart Home Blog

Logitech recently released a free iPhone app Touch Mouse which transforms Apple smartphone into a wireless trackpad or keyboard. It uses WiFi to communicate with PC and fully compatible with both Mac and PC platforms. To be able to use Touch Mouse the additional software should be installed on your PC.

The Touch Mouse can make control of your HTPC much easier and handier (if you run Mac or Windows of course). I’m disappointed a bit that there is no Linux version of Touch Mouse server software. It’d be nice to use Logitech iPhone app together with XBMC, Boxee or LinuxMCE.

[via Engadget]

Squeezebox Touch

Squeezebox Radio

The success Logitech’s lineup of networked audio players Squeezebox was expanded by two new devices – Squeezebox Radio and Squeezebox Touch.

The Squeezebox Radio allows to listen free Internet stations, subscription music services like Rhapsody, Napster, Pandora, Sirius, LastFM and audio files from the network shares including DRM-free iTunes Plus downloads. It sports integrated amplifier, speakers (woofers and tweeters), 2.4-inch 24-bit color display to show album art, track and station information and photos. The radio supports both wired (10/100 Mbps) and wireless (802.11g) connections. Additionally it’s equiped with auxiliary input to connect iPod or any MP3 player. The Logitech Squeezebox Radio Accessory Pack which includes a battery pack and IR remote will be available separately. Using battery pack you can easily move the Squeezebox Radio in any place you want. Even without power cable. The Squeezebox Radio will be available in the U.S. and Europe beginning in September for a suggested retail price of $199.99. The Accessory Pack should be available later, on November for $49.99.
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It seems that next generation of Logitech Squeezebox will have4.3-inch color touchscreen to control music playback. Not sure that this is a real device because there is no any word on the Logitech’s site about such product (remember, the same situation was with its Squeezebox Boom). But I like that conception. More over, according to tentative spec, Logitech Squeezebox Touch will support host USB to playback music directly from the flash-drive. The rest specification includes:

• Audio formats: MP3, FLAC, WAV, AIFF, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, Apple Lossless, WMA Lossless, APE, MPC and WavPack supported through transcoding
• Support for MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and WMA formatted Internet Radio streams Wireless interface
• True 802.11g wireless networking
• One-touch setup (with compatible WPS-supporting routers)
• Support WPA Personal, WPA-2AES, and 64/128-bit WEP encryption Ethernet interface
• Connects to any 100 Mbps or 10 Mbps network (with Auto MDX)
• USB host connector for accessing music and photos via USB drive or USB key
• SD card slot for music and photos
• Supports sampling rates up to 24 bit / 96 kHz
• Stereo analog (RCA), headphone jack, digital optical, and digital coax output
• 4.3-inch 24-bit color LCD with capacitive touch screen
• Ambient light sensor to adjust display brightness according to environment
• Infrared proximity sensor to detect presence

The price of Logitech Squeezebox Touch is about €330. Will wait for official Logitech announcement.

[via Zatz Not Funny]

Recently discovered that popular series of Logitech’s remote controls Harmony has IR codes to control Video Disk Recorder (VDR) box. To get them to your device just download new remote using Logitech software choosing type PVR, producer KLS and model VDR. Also you can use this config file for LIRCd. Have fun!

[via VDR Wiki]

I already wrote about using compact keyboard with mouse pad Logitech diNovo with MythTV. Now it’s time to use it to control your LinuxMCE core/hybrid or media director. Media buttons work out of the box. But to activate mouse pad just add following line to the /etc/modprobe.d/options:
options usbhid quirks=0x046d:0xc71f:0x00080000

After reboot enjoy that cool keyboard!