Home-Remote

Control your media devices from your phone. (On Linux 🐧)

Screenshot

Information

This progressive web app lets you control media (browser players like YouTube or Netflix, desktop applications like Spotify or VLC) on your PC from your phone (or tablet). The server is started on the device to control, and devices in the same Wifi network can access the web interface, relaying commands to the PC. The commands triggered involve playerctl and pactl, and are strictly limited for now.

Background

This project came into being because until recently, I used a bluetooth mouse to control my PC from my couch. This involved a quickly draining battery, as well as the need for sniper-level accuracy to hit UI elements with the cursor from far away.

With this, I (and you) can control the media running on my PC from a phone, replacing the bluetooth mouse.

Features

For now, only barebones functionality exists.

Commands

Player based (playerctl):

• Play
• Pause

System based (pactl):

• Volume increase
• Volume decrease

Future Commands

Also possible, but not yet implemented:

• Next track/video
• Skip forward/backward (to specific position or an interval)
• Select which media player is targeted instead of the default (most recent)
• Automatic UI element triggring (probably needs browser add-on or cursor automation)

Other

The web interface is PWA compatible. I.e. the bookmark can be saved as an app on your phone.

Setup

Simple steps to run this yourself after cloning the repo. (No npm package or something similar yet)

PC/Server

1. yarn install
2. yarn build
3. yarn start -p $PORT

The "server" needs to be the same system on which the player runs/the sound is controlled.
Optional: Start this automatically via cron, systemd, your WM init service, etc. An example systemd unit file can be found in this repo.

Phone/Tablet

1. Visit http://<ip-or-dns-of-pc>:<port>.
2. ?????
3. CONVENIENCE