Here is my problem:
Our TV is connected to a SBC running a GNOME/Wayland desktop, where we watch Jellyfin and sometimes Netflix/Hulu through Firefox.
I’d like to be able to trigger pause/play (space button) from Home Assistant, which is running on my home server.
What I am thinking of would be a server/daemon running on the TV computer that my home server would be able to send keys to via a CLI tool (in this case the space key). I am surprised to find that I cannot locate any program like this.
Can anyone provide any suggestions here?
Other ideas:
- Jellyfin’s HA integration doesn’t let me pause/play from it, and that still doesn’t handle Hulu/Netflix.
- I was able to get this working through SSH and there are tools like ydotool/wtype here that work, but I found waiting for SSH to be a bit slow to connect.
Update: I got frustrated and coded up a solution: https://gitlab.com/neilsimp1/kbsrv
Have you tried KDE Connect?
I have only used it to control my TV computer from my phone, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t work between 2 computers.
There is a ‘Multimedia control’ feature that allows pause/play/stop and volume control, the ‘Remote Input’ feature has a keyboard (so you should be able to trigger the space button) and if you want to do something more complicated you can set up and run commands.
X2 on kde connect, I regularly use it to control my desktop with my laptop
Of you’re fine with proprietary there’s Unified Remote.
Where is the machine located compared to the viewing room? Could you not use a wireless keyboard?
I have a wireless keyboard. I want to be able to send a key event from CLI on another PC, though.
If your willing to write a little code, you could get an esp32, and use on of the keyboard libraries to make it appear as a keyboard?
https://hackaday.com/2021/03/26/usb-comes-to-the-esp32/
Very roundabout solution though.
