Now if you browse through the site you’ll see that Jordan Lawrence ( iJ0rd8n ) did a blog on controlling your Kodi device with a smartphone a little while ago. Now this has been my favorite way of controlling my devices pretty much since i got into using Kodi.
So, today i’m going to do a quick piece on my personal favorite app for controlling my Kodi devices, specifically the Yatse app for Android based devices and get a little bit into what the app gives you and why i prefer it over a physical remote.
Yatse, the Kodi/XBMC Remote app is available on the Play store for all android devices (tablets and phones) and is free to download, which obviously we like!
So once youve installed the app on your device and open it up it will run a wizard to detect kodi devices on your network (this needs to enabled in your settings on your Kodi device by browsing to, Settings, Services, Webserver and turning ON, Allow control of Kodi via HTTP and also make sure the under the Remote Control settings that you turn on, Allow programs on this system to control Kodi).
Once if finds your device or devices you can save them (if you have more than one) and select the one you’d like to control
As you can see i have 3 boxes running Kodi. Once you choose your device you get to your remote options
By selecting remote it gives you the a remote layout for navigating and using your box
As you can see its a nice simple layout with all the basic functions including a context menu button. Whilst you box is playing something, you’ll see the controls change to media functions and your navigation arrows will skip forward or back (depending on your kodi settings, left an right is around 30 secs and up and down around 10 mins. This will also vary for short playback times).
During playback you can swipe to the left for more options like subtitle and audio track options
So that’s the basics, now for why this is my favorite app…if my boys want a film on their box in the bedroom and are struggling to find it, I can change which device i’m controlling, switch to their box and brig up a list of all addons by selecting Addons from the main list
Now i will get thumbnails of every addon on the box and i can scroll and access any of them, all from another room without having to set eyes on their tv as long as everything is within wifi range!
So i scroll to my desired addon (here i’ve used Release Hub), select it, i know get the page of the addon to select the site i want
I select the site and now am given the list of links
I choose the link and they get the film they wanted, all without having to move from my comfy sofa!!!
Another handy feature is the keyboard tab so if doing a search in an addon for example i can bring up the on screen keyboard on the app
So this fantastic little app which is free really quite awesome. It has some basic settings which you’ll not really need to go into and if you want to buy even more features (access box settings from the app among other things), you can purchase whats called the Unlocker which is available but through the Amazon Apps store.
Obviously there are many free apps to control Kodi and not just for the Android OS, but for me this one just fits perfectly!!
Give it a try and see what you think….