If Bonjour is not installed on your computer or the Bonjour URL is not working for some reason, then you can enter the IP address of your RedEye unit into the browser address bar. The trick is finding that address. Here are some options:

• On a Mac, run Bonjour Browser
• On an iOS device, run Flame
• On a Windows machine, use our new RedEye Finder application:

http://thinkflood.com/media/redeye-finder/RedEyeFinder.exe (English)

http://thinkflood.com/media/redeye-finder/RedEyeFinder-pt.exe (Portuguese)

When you run the application for the first time you’ll be asked for permission to run an application downloaded from the Internet. Click “Run.”

Roku streaming media players are popular among RedEye customers and Roku’s IP control documentation is quite good, so we chose it as one of the first devices to add to our IP driver library.This document provides some information on how you can access the more advanced features available through the Roku driver.

Adding the Roku IP device

As with any device, the first place to go is the “Add a Device” screen, where we choose our manufacturer (Roku) and device type (Streaming Media Player). For the port, we scroll to the bottom of the list and choose the “Add New IP Port” option. Finally, give the device a display name (e.g., “Roku”) and tap Save.

All Roku players use the same API, so there is only one driver to choose from. When you select it, you will see a brief note about compatibility and a list of its commands. This is the one we want, so tap Save again.

We are almost done adding the Roku device, but before it will work properly, we have to change the IP port settings to identify the address on our network where we can reach the Roku player. For best results, we should edit the client list on our router to reserve this particular IP address or change the Roku player’s network settings to make this IP address static — otherwise after a router reboot or power outage we may find that the Roku IP address has changed and we would have to go back to update our settings here.

Assuming that you have taken care of reserving the IP address for your Roku, tap on the Port Settings row and enter the IP address in the space provided. The rest of the settings on this screen are fine, so tap Save to finish.

Adding a “Watch Roku” Activity

Once you have added an IP device, you can use it in your RedEye activities just as you would any other device. To illustrate, we will create a simple “Watch Roku” activity. First, choose the activity type (Watch Streaming Video), and give it a name (Watch Roku). Then select the devices you wish to use (in this case, a projector, an AVR, and the Roku player itself). Then tap Save.

After setting up the appropriate launch and shutdown actions as usual, RedEye will give you a default activity template. Roku does not offer some of the commands found in the template, so the screenshot here is what we get after a little bit of layout customization.

At this point you can go ahead and use your Roku as is, but you may be thinking that we could have done the same thing with the Roku infrared codeset. Our next step is to add some of the customization that IP makes possible.

Adding a Search Box

A lot of Roku channels offer search functionality, but using the onscreen keyboard can be a bit of a pain.One thing that can make life simpler is using a keyboard within the RedEye app to enter search text. To do that, we need to add a search text box to our Watch Roku activity.

Before you can add a text box or any of the more advanced layout elements, you need to turn on the Advanced Options preference on the Main Setup screen[1]:

Next, find your Watch Roku activity and click on the “Edit Activity Layout” button to make changes to the layout. Then tap on the plus (+) icon to add a new control to the layout. If this is the first time you have enabled Advanced Options, then the following screen may be new to you. We want add a text field control, so go ahead and select that now.

This is the Text Field Setup screen, where we configure values for the search box we are creating. We can skip the Name and Description fields. In Placeholder, enter the value “search” — this word will appear inside the box as a hint to remind us what happens with the text we enter.

You can leave the font size alone, but we should go ahead and change the text field width so it takes up most of the screen. Our layouts are 320 pixels wide, so if we leave a margin of 10 pixels on each, 300 pixels is what we want.

Finally, we will skip down to the bottom of the screen. We need to assign a variable to this control — variables are the means by which we send our text down to the RedEye for transmission to the Roku. The Roku driver has already created a variable for this purpose, so we can go ahead and select the one called “roku-textInput”. Once we have our variable selected, we can choose an action to make the search box process our text. The Roku driver has a command called “Send Text Entry” which uses the roku-textInput variable, so we can select that here. Then tap Save.

Now when you are using your Roku player and you want to search for something, all you need to do is start typing into the search box.

Adding an Installed Channel List

Another thing we can do with the Roku IP driver is download a list of installed channels. By presenting that list inside our Watch Roku activity, we can jump directly from one channel to the other without having to go back to the Roku home screen and navigate around using the arrow keypad. This time we are going to add an HTML control to our activity.

Since we want RedEye to launch the appropriate Roku channel when we tap on an item in the list, we are going to change the HTML control type from “Display Only” to “Action”.

Next we need to specify an HTML Content variable which contains the HTML to draw our list. Once again, the Roku IP driver has pre-configured the variable we need – it is called “roku-channelHtml”.

Just as with the text field, we need some way to tell RedEye which item we have tapped, and so we have a Selected Value variable. For this we will use the Roku driver’s “roku-selectedChannelId” variable.

Finally, we will choose the Launch Activity command for our action. This command uses the value in the roku-selectedChannelId variable to launch the channel we want.

At the bottom of the channel list, you may have noticed the “(refresh channel list)” row. If you add or remove channels to your Roku, you can tap on this row to update the list of available channels in your Watch Roku activity.

Adding a Sleep Button

Many television sets include a sleep button which will turn off the TV after 15, 30, or 60 minutes — perfect if your routine is letting the soothing rhythms of late night talk shows sweep you into dreamland (thanks, Jimmy). Unfortunately, the TV sleep button doesn’t shut down your system. What’s that? You want a RedEye sleep button in your Watch TV activity? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Our first step is to add a new button to the activity itself. Because we are going to use scripting for this, let’s edit the activity layout using the browser application. Once you have opened up the activity layout for editing, click on the “Add Control” button and choose “Button” for the control type. Here is how the screen looks after we have moved our new button into place:

(click to enlarge)

Activity Shutdown Script, Part One

Next we need to add some functionality to our button. We want it to wait for a bit, and then shutdown the currently running activity. We’ll make this happen using a script. To do so, click on the “Choose Action” hyperlink. Then change the action type to “Script” and hit the “Edit” button.

(click to enlarge)

When the script editor opens, we have a template for our action script. We can go ahead and delete the comment text — it’s just a placeholder. Next, head over to the “System Functions” menu and choose the Scripting.Wait function — this allows us to put a delay into our script.

(click to enlarge)

For now, let’s put a relatively short delay in here — we don’t want to have to wait 15 or 30 minutes between tests. The wait function is looking for a time value in milliseconds, so let’s put in the number 2000 — a 2 second wait. Here’s the script thus far:

require "systemScript"

Scripting.Wait(2000)

Next up, let’s head back to the System Functions menu and select the Scripting.LaunchActivity function, which we can use to shut everything down. Select the “roomId” text and then replace it by choosing your room out of the Rooms menu. Then for the activityId, enter -1 to shut everything down.

(click to enlarge)

Here is the script I have — yours will probably have a different room ID and name, but everything else should be the same.

require "systemScript"

Scripting.Wait(2000)
Scripting.LaunchActivity(0--[[Room: Media Room]], -1)

To test our script, simply click on the “Test Script” button (you may want to launch an activity on your RedEye first if there isn’t one running already so that you can confirm the shutdown part is working).

Launching a Background Task

We are almost finished, but we have one more thing to consider. When testing the script, you may have noticed that it ran for several seconds — 2 seconds for our delay, and then however long it took to turn off the activity you were using. Here’s something important to note: while the script was running, we could not send any other commands to the system — our script was blocking everything else until it finished. With a 2 second delay, that’s fine, but obviously it would not be acceptable for us to jam up the system for half an hour. After all, we might want to change the channel or adjust the volume after we hit the sleep button. We need some way of pushing the sleep command into the background while we do other things. Thankfully, RedEye offers a means to run scripts in the background using the Lua Task library. All we need to do is add a couple of lines to our existing script.

First, we need to include the Lua Task library in our script. We do this by adding the following line to the top of the script:

require "task"

Next, we will take our current script and assign it to a local variable:

local scriptText = [[Scripting.Wait(2000)
                     Scripting.LaunchActivity(0--[[Room: Media Room]], -1)]]

Then we need to add an equal sign to the front of this variable — that tells Lua Task that the text we are sending is a script rather than the location of a script file.

local scriptText = [[=Scripting.Wait(2000)
                      Scripting.LaunchActivity(0--[[Room: Media Room]], -1)]]

Finally, we call the task.create function.

task.create("WatchTV_Sleep", scriptText)

If you were to look at Lua Task’s online documentation, you would notice that we added something extra to the front of this function. We have extended Lua Task a bit so that we can send messages between different tasks in a reliable way. For this type of usage, you do not need to worry too much about what happens here, but the value you send does need to be unique. I have chosen to use the name of the activity plus the button name; to avoid conflict with built-in RedEye task names, please avoid starting your task name with a number.

The following screenshot shows how the script looks at this point.

(click to enlarge)

Once you have tested this version of the script to see that it works (notice how quickly it runs?), you can adjust the Scripting.Wait function to your desired length. Remember, we are dealing in milliseconds, so 15 minutes is 900,000 (please leave out the comma), 30 minutes is 1,800,000, and one hour is 3,600,000. Here is the final script for a 30 minute sleep button:

(click to enlarge)

That’s it (easy, right?). Save your action script and your activity layout, and you are finished. Sweet dreams.

If you find that your Apple device does not respond to codes from the database, it is likely because you currently have another remote paired with that device, such as the Apple Remote. Because only one remote can be paired with an Apple device at a time, this would prevent RedEye from properly controlling that device . If you find that you can’t control your Apple device with RedEye, you’ll need to unpair your other remote from that device. Instructions for unpairing your Apple Remote from your Apple TV are found on Apple’s Support website here. For unpair instructions regarding other Apple devices, please see the list of remote pairing support documents here.

The second consideration is polarity. Each emitter cable uses an LED to transmit the infrared signal. LEDs only work when current is flowing in one direction, so the polarity of the connection matters. For both RedEye and RedEye Pro, the emitter plug tip is connected to V_CC, and the ring is connected to ground. Again, this is the most common configuration.

There is one final consideration which affects RedEye Pro more than the WiFi RedEye, and that is the spacing of conductors and insulators along the length of the 3.5mm plug. Although the Japanese standards body JEITA defines these dimensions precisely, not all plugs and jacks are manufactured according to these standards. WiFi RedEye uses a mono jack, which has only one conductor in addition to ground, so most emitters work fine here. However, RedEye Pro uses a stereo jack, which has two conductors in addition to ground — the second (middle) conductor being used when a RedEye Pro port is set to operate as a contact closure sensor. In some cases, mating plug dimension differences cause the conductors to misalign, therefore rendering the emitter cable non-functional.

The following table shows compatibility with RedEye and RedEye Pro across many of the major brands of emitter cables. We will continue to update this table as we conduct more tests.

In addition, we have confirmed compatibility with the following connecting blocks. These can be used in sequence or singly:

Xantech 78944

Xantech CB12

1. Is the RedEye unit connected to your network?

If RedEye is not appearing in the Rooms list of the application, you might assume that it is not connected to your home network at all. However, it is possible that RedEye is associated with your home network but simply is not appearing in the Rooms list of the application. To verify that RedEye has connected to your network, we recommend going into your wireless router’s admin page to see if RedEye is listed as a DHCP client. The MAC address for the RedEye unit will begin with 00:23:87…

If RedEye is listed as an active client but it is not appearing in the Rooms list, there is most likely a router security setting preventing your iOS device from communicating with the RedEye unit. For example, recent models of D-Link and Linksys routers have proprietary mechanisms with names like “Client Isolation” or “Access Point (AP) Isolation.” Please check your router’s admin page to determine if this is an issue for you. You will need to disable client isolation to allow the RedEye unit and your iOS device to communicate with each other.

2. Are you entering the network passkey/password correctly?

The most common issue we encounter with networking is incorrect passwords. To ensure that you enter your password correctly in the RedEye app, we recommend copying the password from an email or note and pasting into the RedEye App.

Please note that if you are using WEP security on your router, passkeys will only be composed of hexadecimal digits (i.e., 0-9, a-f). If your router manufacturer provided a translation from this format that allows you to use a standard password with other characters, RedEye application may not support this translation method as it is not standardized. We do support Apple’s method, so if you are connecting to an Apple router you can use this translated password. Otherwise, you will need to use a WEP passkey composed of only hexadecimal digits.

3. Are there any alternate network passkeys to try?

If you are using WEP, your router may provide 2-3 passkeys for the device. Sometimes our customers have more success with one of the alternate passkeys.

4. Do you have MAC filtering enabled?

If you are using MAC filtering on your network, you will need to add the MAC address of the RedEye unit to the active client list in your router’s admin page. The MAC address of the RedEye unit is printed on a label on the bottom of the box, as well as the bottom of the unit itself.

5. Are there enough DHCP leases available?

Although this problem is unusual, we have encountered situations in which the router settings only allowed 10-15 DHCP clients and all available slots were taken. Generally speaking, it does not hurt to allow your router to accommodate 50-100 DHCP clients, and this should be plenty of room for virtually any residential network.

6. Which wireless channel are you using?

Particularly if you live in an apartment our densely populated urban area, you may find that there are several other wireless networks around you. Sometimes these networks can interfere with one another. Changing the network channel usually helps. You can also download one of the free network scanning utilities such as inSSIDer or NetStumbler.

For customers in the EU or Japan, please make sure that your router us limited to a channel between 1 and 11, as RedEye is limited to the wireless spectrum allowed in North America. For more information about network spectrum limitations, please read our article, Wi-Fi Networking Issues in Europe and Japan.

7. Is your RedEye dropping off of the network after a few hours or days?

Typically this issue is caused by a problem with WPA key renewal. WPA- and WPA2-secured networks use encryption to protect information on your network. In order to prevent hackers from cracking the encryption, they rotate through keys on a periodic basis. Normally this is not a problem for RedEye, but we have seen issues with some router models. If RedEye misses the notification of a key renewal, then the router may “deauthorize” the unit and it will drop off the network.

If you are experiencing this issue, you have a few options. First, if your router supports it we recommend increasing the key renewal timeout period — this is the amount of time that your router will accept an expired key, and it typically solves the problem, because RedEye can request the new key after an error and remain on the network.

Second, you can turn off key renewal altogether (usually by setting the key expiration time to 0). Unfortunately, this makes WPA security weaker, but not all routers provide a setting for lengthening the timeout period.

Third, you can abandon WPA security and use WEP instead, but as WEP is significantly less secure, we do not recommend this option.

8. Do you sometimes experience long delays before your RedEye “room” appears in the RedEye app?

Normally it only takes a couple of seconds for the RedEye app to find your RedEye “room” in the application. If you sometimes experience longer delays — 20, 30 seconds or more — but eventually do see the room appear, then there may be some incompatibility between Bonjour (the Apple technology we use for discovering the RedEye on your network) and your router. Upgrading your router firmware can help, but if that fails, we recommend using the “Add Room by IP Address” function, which you can find on the Main Setup screen of the RedEye app. “Add Room by IP Address” requires you to first establish a static IP address for your RedEye unit, and then to enter that IP address and your RedEye unit’s serial number into the application.

9. Are you using a dual-band router with both frequency bands active?

Many routers provide two frequency bands: 2.4GHz, and 5GHz. These two bands, if active, should use different SSIDs. The 2.4GHz band will support all b/g and n wireless standard devices, while the 5GHz band will only support wireless n standard devices. RedEye will connect to the 2.4GHz band via the b or g wireless standard, but it will not connect to the 5GHz band (which supports only wireless n devices).

If you are using a dual-band router with both frequency bands active, you should connect the RedEye to the SSID associated with the 2.4GHz band. If your 2.4GHz band and 5GHz band have the same SSID, you should change the SSID of the 5GHz band so you are able to clearly distinguish which network you are connecting the RedEye to.

1. When on the RedEye network and scanning for your home network, you do not see your home network in the list of results.
2. After successfully transitioning the RedEye unit to your home work, it later stops appearing in your Rooms list.

This networking issue revolves around regulatory differences for the wireless spectrum in the EU and Japan versus in North America.

In North America, wireless routers are limited to the use of channels 1 through 11. In other countries additional channels are available. For example, Europe allows wireless routers to use channels 1 through 13, and routers in Japan can operate on channels 1 through 14. We have limited RedEye to channels 1 through 11 in order to comply with North American regulations. As a result, customers in Europe and Japan may encounter networking problems with RedEye if their routers are connecting through a higher channel (12 and above).

Even if you have previously connected RedEye to your network, many wireless routers come pre-configured to automatically select a channel based upon ambient noise levels. If the channel changes at some point in the future, RedEye may not be able to keep up with the change.

To alleviate this problem, we suggest that all European and Japanese customers deactivate automatic channel selection in their router settings. Manually setting the router to a channel between 1 and 11 will prevent the router from operating on a channel that is not supported by RedEye. Our European and Japanese customers using router equipment which is also widely marketed in the US may find that their router’s manufacturer has already limited the software to use channels 1 through 11. However, as a precaution we ask that our customers check this setting if they are having networking problems with their Wi-Fi RedEye unit.

Failures are the result of vibrations which cause wiring between the headphone jack and the mini’s printed circuit board to break or to create short circuits with other components. In the original design of the RedEye mini, the headphone jack is soldered directly to the printed circuit board, preventing the printed circuit board from moving relative to the headphone jack, as shown in the following photo of a prototype unit.

Original design

The manufacturer of the C0101 lot felt that it was too difficult to solder the headphone jack to the printed circuit board in this fashion. As a result, we approved a design change that would allow the circuit board to be secured to the plastic enclosure by a permanent adhesive, thus keeping the printed circuit board fixed and preventing vibrations from stressing the wiring.

We began to see an alarming number of tested units fail “in the field,” so on Thursday, 22 July 2010 we opened up some of these units to discover that the circuit boards were secured with a relatively small dot of low-tack foam tape. As a result of being improperly secured, circuit boards are coming loose from their housings and being jostled about. As they shake, wires become loose and break, or come in contact with other components on the board, resulting in erratic behavior of the unit.

Lot C0101 unit with loose wires and inadequate adhesive

Based upon what we are seeing with these units secured by foam tape, we believe it is only a matter of time before many of these printed circuit boards will separate from the plastic enclosure and begin to float freely. Rather than wait for these units to fail, we feel that the best alternative is to replace them as soon as possible.

As we had quality concerns before, we were already in the process of transitioning RedEye mini manufacturing to a new contractor. On Friday, 23 July 2010 an engineering team from our new supplier visited the manufacturer of the C0101 lot to take over all supplies, tooling, and other materials necessary to begin producing new RedEye mini units. Going forward, all RedEye mini units will be made in accordance with the original design, having the headphone jack securely soldered to the printed circuit board to prevent vibration failures.

We sincerely apologize for both the inconvenience and the delays that we have caused our customers with this oversight. Unfortunate though it has been, this has been a learning experience for us, and we hope to win back your confidence as we improve our control over the manufacturing process.

Customers who purchased a mini from lot C0101 will automatically receive a replacement unit at no cost once new units are available. Those who wish to receive a refund should send an email to support@thinkflood.com and specify their original order number.

Step 1: Assign a Static IP Address to RedEye

If you are going to connect to RedEye by IP address it is important to make sure that IP address does not change. In most home networks a router acts as a DHCP server and assigns IP addresses as needed, which means those IP addresses can change from time to time. While you can set your RedEye device to self-assign a static IP address, usually the best way to reserve a static IP address is through the DHCP server.

Each router and DHCP server will have a slightly different way of assigning static IP addresses, but basically what you need is the MAC address for your RedEye — conveniently printed on the label on the unit’s underside. (NOTE: all RedEye MAC addresses begin with 00:23:87, so you may be able to locate the MAC address through your DHCP server, as well.) The following screenshot shows how to reserve a static IP address on an Apple Airport using the Airport Utility:

Step 2: Decide How You Will Connect

The next step is to decide how you will connect to the RedEye on your home network while you are away. The best method by far is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN). Using a VPN is just like being on your home network, except that you are connecting remotely either over the cell network or through another Wi-Fi network. Thus, a VPN will allow you to connect to more than one RedEye device remotely, and it also keeps your RedEye units safely hidden behind your firewall so outsiders cannot jump in and change the channel on you (gulp).

Unfortunately, most home routers do not offer VPN functionality, so you may have to go with the backup option: port forwarding. Port forwarding basically creates a mapping between devices inside your network and certain ports on your router. There are a couple of downsides to this approach. First, the RedEye application only knows to communicate over certain specific ports, so you will only be able to port forward a single RedEye device at one time. Second, one of the ports which the RedEye app uses is port 80, so if you are already hosting a web page through your router you will have to choose another port for your web server or abandon remote access (or your webpage). Finally, port forwarding opens up a security hole in your network so that anyone who discovers that you have a RedEye mapped on the router could control your equipment remotely. Despite these drawbacks, virtually all home routers on the market offer basic port forwarding as an option.

Step 3, Option 1: VPN

You will need to consult your router’s documentation as to setting up a VPN, but once you have done so, you can access the VPN settings on your iPhone by going to the Settings app and then tapping on General > Network > VPN. From there, input your VPN credentials and you should be ready to go. Skip to step 4 to find out how to add RedEye devices by IP address.

Step 3, Option 2: Port Forwarding

Configuring port forwarding is relatively easy. First, you need to know the IP address of the device inside your network that will connect to the outside world. We took care of this in step 1 when we assigned a static IP to the RedEye device. Second, you need to know which ports on that device will respond to outside requests. In the case of the RedEye unit, those ports are 80, 81, and 82. Finally, you need to decide which ports on your router to use for those ports on your device, and what type of connection (TCP or UDP) to allow. The RedEye app has decided that for you already: TCP connections on ports 80, 81, and 82. Enter this information into your router configuration and hit save. Apple’s Airport Utility configuration page appears below for illustration. When you are done, move on to step 4 to finish the process.

Step 4: Add Your IP Room

The last step in the process is to add your RedEye unit as an “IP Room” — that is a room at a fixed IP address to which the RedEye app will try to connect each time on launch. To add an IP room, first open the Setup tab and then select the “Find Rooms by IP Address” row and tap “Add Room.”

The first part of adding your RedEye IP room is simple — just enter the serial number printed on the bottom of your RedEye unit.

What you enter for the IP address depends on which form of remote access you have. If you are using a VPN, then you can enter the static IP address assigned in step one. (You can also repeat this step for each RedEye room you need to add.) If you are using port forwarding, then the IP address is the IP address which your Internet service provider has assigned to your router, as this is the device that we need to find on the wide area network. (Your router will take care of “forwarding” your requests on to the RedEye unit yourself – we took care of that in step 3).

Once you have entered the IP address, tap Save and then Exit Setup to finish.

If this all seems like a little too much, never fear — we do hope to tackle remote access in a more user-friendly manner down the road. But for those who can’t wait for that to happen, in the meantime you have a couple of options.

If you are experiencing network timeouts when connected to your home Wi-Fi network, please try turning off Bluetooth, as the iPhone’s current Bluetooth drivers sometimes interfere with Wi-Fi. If you are experiencing problems during the initial setup process, please read on.

The RedEye device ships configured to establish an ad-hoc, wireless network. Doing so makes it possible to launch the application and configure other wireless settings, given that the device has no keyboard or other input method.

To date, we have discovered one issue with this approach: the iPhone does not “like” being attached to an ad-hoc network, and will often drop the Wi-Fi network connection and jump over to the cellular network. This problem does not exist for iPod touch devices, as they do not have other network options.

This issue stems from a bug in iPhone OS 3.0, but until Apple releases an update there are some things you can do. First, we recommend that you connect the RedEye device to an existing Wi-Fi network, as the iPhone does not appear to have problems remaining connected to regular Wi-Fi access points. (We also have some functionality which requires an Internet connection, so this is a good long-term solution, as well.) However, if you do want to use the factory networking setup — or even if you are just using an iPhone to get the system up and running on your network for the first time — you can turn off the phone’s cellular access and still use Wi-Fi. Here is how it works:

1. Turn on the iPhone’s “Airplane Mode.” Launch the Settings application; Airplane Mode is the top option on the screen.

2. Turn Wi-Fi on and select the RedEye network. By default, Airplane Mode turns off the Wi-Fi radio; however, you can turn it on again manually by tapping on the Wi-Fi row and then flipping the on/off switch on the Wi-Fi Networks screen. From there, tap on the RedEye network to select it, and you should be all set.

PLEASE NOTE: When Airplane Mode is on, you will not be able to receive calls on your phone, so please remember to turn it off when you are finished.