Skip App v0.9.0 Beta

Windows Instructions -- ** UPDATED **

Run the SkipApp Installer.exe, right click, "Run as Administrator".

We are aware of all the windows warnings. We are improving this and will get the app signed with a better installer.

Mac Instructions

Just like any other mac app, mount the SkipApp-0.9.0-mac-universal.dmg and drag the application over to your applications folder.

Known Issues

We are 100% focused on stability and have sidelined some of our animations until the app matures. There are some known bugs we have prioritized, and listed below.

• Power key limited to 8 keys total. Will be fixed in the next release
• Windows Performance Issues likely due to redux
• Occasional glitch in graphics while re-arranging macro list which needs an app restart
• 8 Device Colors can be hard to distinguish
• Drop Down's have quirks
• Still improving automappings
• Some missing flirc devices in our database

Note - Exported configs have the suffix `.skip` but is just a json file. Rename to look.

Please remember to leave version specific feedback in this thread, and always let us know if you are using Windows or Mac.

** EDIT ** - This thread is now locked in favor of the new thread for our latest version.

App 0.9.0, Mac OS 12.6.1 (21G217) on a Macbook Air with 13.3-inch (1440 × 900) display set to native resolution. The App looks blurry; like it's being rendered at a lower resolution and then antialiased and zoomed. It's a little better in "regular" mode vs. "compact". 

Looks good overall. My soundbar, TV, and Roku appear to have the right buttons in the library. Looking forward to getting my Skip hardware. 

1 hour ago, seaner said:

App 0.9.0, Mac OS 12.6.1 (21G217) on a Macbook Air with 13.3-inch (1440 × 900) display set to native resolution. The App looks blurry; like it's being rendered at a lower resolution and then antialiased and zoomed. It's a little better in "regular" mode vs. "compact". 

Looks good overall. My soundbar, TV, and Roku appear to have the right buttons in the library. Looking forward to getting my Skip hardware. 

Do you have a Retina display? Do you have an external monitor you use with your laptop?

I’ll try and reproduce it. 

So far the interface looks good.  Coming from a Logitech Harmony (early version) world, some features I miss (and maybe due in later version).

1) I miss being able to add devices to the remote once, and then when creating a second activity they are already present.  I know we can copy, but sometimes you just one device over, not everything.   (So just another box, with "Your remotes" would be useful).

2) This might be harder, model number searching for devices.  I had trouble finding, matching Ukdevice types for what could be the right remote. 

3) Environmental remotes, (is this home automation?).  One product that I do see missing is the Westinghouse Fan remotes (ID6)

4) From point 1, I guess this could suggest an advanced option in settings, to let you look at your remotes.  A good place to adjust IR controls and repeats for those oddities that need tweaking to work right.

5) And following on from point 4, learning new remotes for unknown devices or home made custom setups.

I'm sure some/and hopefully all of this is in the plans, just providing feedback on what jumps off the app after 10 minutes of use.

(Version 0.9.0.3656 on Windows 11)

5 hours ago, Jilas671 said:

So far the interface looks good.  Coming from a Logitech Harmony (early version) world, some features I miss (and maybe due in later version).

1) I miss being able to add devices to the remote once, and then when creating a second activity they are already present.  I know we can copy, but sometimes you just one device over, not everything.   (So just another box, with "Your remotes" would be useful).

2) This might be harder, model number searching for devices.  I had trouble finding, matching Ukdevice types for what could be the right remote. 

3) Environmental remotes, (is this home automation?).  One product that I do see missing is the Westinghouse Fan remotes (ID6)

4) From point 1, I guess this could suggest an advanced option in settings, to let you look at your remotes.  A good place to adjust IR controls and repeats for those oddities that need tweaking to work right.

5) And following on from point 4, learning new remotes for unknown devices or home made custom setups.

I'm sure some/and hopefully all of this is in the plans, just providing feedback on what jumps off the app after 10 minutes of use.

(Version 0.9.0.3656 on Windows 11)

 

Great feedback. The team will read this and nod. Our wizard had 500 iterations and much of which you describe was in there. The issue was that it was turning into 300 questions and the heart of the app really lied at our innovative drag and drop approach. We sidelined some of these so we can get to a release and concentrate on stability.

We whole heartedly agree on finding a device and the UX team is working through concepts. It can be too hard when it’s not obvious. 

Looking at this now on my MacBook Air 2021 M1 - no errors to report so far.

I second the feedback by Jilas671 - I fully expected the UI to remember my TV and such and having to enter them again was annoying.

Question: Are all of the devices not loaded into the beta test? The FAQ says 50k devices but my TCL Google TV (75R636) wasn't there, nor my Onkyo TX-NR575 let alone my Hue Play box for light sync.

17 minutes ago, AniMeiGrrl said:

Looking at this now on my MacBook Air 2021 M1 - no errors to report so far.

I second the feedback by Jilas671 - I fully expected the UI to remember my TV and such and having to enter them again was annoying.

Question: Are all of the devices not loaded into the beta test? The FAQ says 50k devices but my TCL Google TV (75R636) wasn't there, nor my Onkyo TX-NR575 let alone my Hue Play box for light sync.

Our database isn’t by model but by brand. Onkyo will all have the same codes for all their audio devices even responding to commands that aren’t on their original factory remotes. Make sure you check the right category. We put all ‘audio’ devices also in ‘audio / video’ too, so it looks like duplicates but they are aliases. 

We are going to improve the search a lot. Also, AUX devices just has everything in the entire database. So you could always just go there every time however it might not be clear if it’s a Sony TV or Sony Projector. 
 

We’ll make it “offer” the same devices when setting up a second activity. This was in there and I removed it so I’ll hear some $hi& from the team. 

57 minutes ago, jason said:

Our database isn’t by model but by brand. Onkyo will all have the same codes for all their audio devices even responding to commands that aren’t on their original factory remotes. Make sure you check the right category. We put all ‘audio’ devices also in ‘audio / video’ too, so it looks like duplicates but they are aliases. 

We are going to improve the search a lot. Also, AUX devices just has everything in the entire database. So you could always just go there every time however it might not be clear if it’s a Sony TV or Sony Projector. 
 

We’ll make it “offer” the same devices when setting up a second activity. This was in there and I removed it so I’ll hear some $hi& from the team. 

Okay I kinda get that. Just wasn't clear on the app - and I am sure you wanna make this as ID 10 T-proof as possible for release :)

If the team gives you poop, refer them to me and I'll yell at 'em for you. :D

6 hours ago, AniMeiGrrl said:

Okay I kinda get that. Just wasn't clear on the app - and I am sure you wanna make this as ID 10 T-proof as possible for release :)

If the team gives you poop, refer them to me and I'll yell at 'em for you. :D

It's a fair point and honestly, our wizard was getting so big, I had to put a stop to it so we can keep it simple and slowly improve. First thing was gathering feedback, and now we have it. So the UX team will focus on improving setup and finding devices while I focus with the engineering team on performance and bugs. 

I’m on Mac, is there a way to configure multiple remotes without doing the factory reset option?

3 hours ago, Ivy said:

I’m on Mac, is there a way to configure multiple remotes without doing the factory reset option?

Not unless you have the physical remotes. You could export your config and start a new one. But we actually refactored the software so you could start without one. 

Thanks for posting this! 

I have a couple of queries, though.

When creating a new Activity, what is the point at which we create the appropriate input for the various components we have added? Perhaps I missed it.

For example:

Sony UBP-x800 DVD player (Plugs into the Pioneer AV receiver below)
Panasonic TV (eg must select HDMI 2), 
Pioneer AV receiver (eg Sony plugs into one of the HDMI ports)

I didn't see the Sony Blu-Ray model listed as an explicit model number but I assume the "generic" Sony input works. 

The same question applies to the other components I have, an Apple TV and Fetch Mighty box. All use the Panasonic TV for vision and Pioneer for the A/V in some way. 

Also didn't see any Bose sound touch devices showing, eg Sound Touch 30 type. In the mix for later? https://www.bose.com.au/en_au/support/products/bose_speakers_support/bose_smarthome_speakers_support/soundtouch-30-wireless-music-system.html

Looks great so far!

Cheers

Dean W

1 hour ago, DeanW said:

When creating a new Activity, what is the point at which we create the appropriate input for the various components we have added? Perhaps I missed it.

For example:

Sony UBP-x800 DVD player (Plugs into the Pioneer AV receiver below)
Panasonic TV (eg must select HDMI 2), 
Pioneer AV receiver (eg Sony plugs into one of the HDMI ports)

Not there yet. This was really hard to do without making the wizard and endless set of questions and many of the modern devices currently turn on what's needed with CEC. So this was a decision to turn on what's needed, and drop you into the activity manager. Open up the power button, drag what's needed over, and you can re-arrange the items in the list. Click on any of the items to change the timing, and there is a test button in the dropdown. We'll go back to this but it almost takes longer to ask you every question needed than just dragging stuff over. Interested in your thoughts and feedback.

1 hour ago, DeanW said:

didn't see the Sony Blu-Ray model listed as an explicit model number but I assume the "generic" Sony input works. 

Yeah, Sony is generic for Sony. 

1 hour ago, DeanW said:

The same question applies to the other components I have, an Apple TV and Fetch Mighty box. All use the Panasonic TV for vision and Pioneer for the A/V in some way. 

 

In set top boxes.

1 hour ago, DeanW said:

Also didn't see any Bose sound touch devices showing, eg Sound Touch 30 type. In the mix for later? https://www.bose.com.au/en_au/support/products/bose_speakers_support/bose_smarthome_speakers_support/soundtouch-30-wireless-music-system.html

I have to look at this one, most likely, `SoundTouch 120/130 (Home Theater System)` will work, but if not, we made it easy to add quickly.

Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks Jason, I have used the Harmony type remotes before and had come across these questions / input requirements, so wasn't sure where / if they should be appearing here. Looks like I jumped too soon. Keep up the great work!

Just tried the app out and it looks great! I created an activity but whenever I hover over the activity under the Activities section to the left the app crashes.

Running version 0.9.0.3656 on Windows 10

Keep up the good work!

I think relying on CEC is not a good idea, as some devices frequently talk to the tv as for example the AppleTV that sometimes takes over the communication to the tv from my sky receiver while watching sky...

You suggested to select the HDMI ports in the POWER UP/POWER DOWN menu as far as I understood (?) - that seams to mean that there has to be a button on the (virtual) Skip that can be (virtually) moved to the POWER ON List of activities. But I don't have any button of the TV on my (virtual) SKIP because the SKY receiver does the navigation and provides the media and my Sonos ARC is there for audio ... so there is no key to change HDMI input ports of the television that could be moved to the POWER ON process-list.

... or maybe I didn't understand how it works ...

Could you enlighten me on what CEC is, and how this might work to enable various inputs on my devices? 

When you consider most TV’s have multiple HDMI inputs, as do most A/V systems, I’m not clear on how Skip will select which input to enable on which device is we don’t have the ability to option this in the remote control setup.

Perhaps I am just used to the Logitech Harmony way of doing things where you can option the devices and inputs from a PC interface when the remote control is connected and upload this to the device.

Hi,
I am from Austria, and are impatiently awaiting the device !
Following devices I cannot find in the database:
shuttle (Xpc)
Cambridge audio: AXR 100D
Sony: Playstaion5 

1 hour ago, Klaus1 said:

Hi,
I am from Austria, and are impatiently awaiting the device !
Following devices I cannot find in the database:
shuttle (Xpc)
Cambridge audio: AXR 100D
Sony: Playstaion5 

If you have the original remotes for the shuttle, and cambridge audio, I'll help find these. 

Playstation 5 I'm not sure has IR support. But if it support a keyboard, flirc should work.

2 hours ago, DeanW said:

Could you enlighten me on what CEC is, and how this might work to enable various inputs on my devices? 

When you consider most TV’s have multiple HDMI inputs, as do most A/V systems, I’m not clear on how Skip will select which input to enable on which device is we don’t have the ability to option this in the remote control setup.

Perhaps I am just used to the Logitech Harmony way of doing things where you can option the devices and inputs from a PC interface when the remote control is connected and upload this to the device.

CEC is what TV's helps devices connected to a TV communicate with eachother.  Don't worry, we aren't going to rely on it. It was a matter of making the wizard ask you 5 questions per device to help figure you out how to turn things on when in general, this would make it much harder for most modern users and devices and it's much more simple to drag items on the list.

That being said, it was a compromise to ship, we were pigeon holed on it, and we had a ton of other stuff to do. The one area that will see continuous improvements is the wizard, auto assignment, and troubleshooting.

3 hours ago, Flieger37 said:

I think relying on CEC is not a good idea, as some devices frequently talk to the tv as for example the AppleTV that sometimes takes over the communication to the tv from my sky receiver while watching sky...

You suggested to select the HDMI ports in the POWER UP/POWER DOWN menu as far as I understood (?) - that seams to mean that there has to be a button on the (virtual) Skip that can be (virtually) moved to the POWER ON List of activities. But I don't have any button of the TV on my (virtual) SKIP because the SKY receiver does the navigation and provides the media and my Sonos ARC is there for audio ... so there is no key to change HDMI input ports of the television that could be moved to the POWER ON process-list.

... or maybe I didn't understand how it works ...

 

 

Yeah, maybe post your setup and I can show you what I'm referring to.

My setup (actually not working well with CEC) is:

- Watch TV: Philips 65OLED804 TV, SKY SAT Receiver on HDMI 2, SONOS ARC on HDMI 1 eARC

- Watch Blu-ray: Philips 65OLED804 TV, Samsung BD-C6900 on HDMI 3, SONOS ARC on HDMI 1 eARC

- Watch AppleTV: Philips 65OLED804 TV, Apple TV on HDMI 4, SONOS ARC on HDMI 1 eARC

(Alternative Solution: everything connected via a Feintech AV Switch which I did not find in your database as well as my Philips TV and the Samsung BD-C Series)

Thanks for your help!

@Flieger37

Like this, drag and drop what you want your power button to do for this activity.

In this example, I added the Phillips and Sky Sat Group 1, and turn on the TV, and change to Input 3. It'll be really easy to click and test to see if it's working once you have your remote.

11 hours ago, Flieger37 said:

My setup (actually not working well with CEC) is:

- Watch TV: Philips 65OLED804 TV, SKY SAT Receiver on HDMI 2, SONOS ARC on HDMI 1 eARC

- Watch Blu-ray: Philips 65OLED804 TV, Samsung BD-C6900 on HDMI 3, SONOS ARC on HDMI 1 eARC

- Watch AppleTV: Philips 65OLED804 TV, Apple TV on HDMI 4, SONOS ARC on HDMI 1 eARC

(Alternative Solution: everything connected via a Feintech AV Switch which I did not find in your database as well as my Philips TV and the Samsung BD-C Series)

Thanks for your help!

To further clarify, if for example, you hit 'home' on your apple tv profile, apple tv will wake your TV up, and turn the correct HDMI input on automatically with CEC/ARC.

It makes things much easier.

Downloaded both files, first opened the .exe file, that extraceted some files, next downloaded and tried to open the msix file but no succes.

Windows prompted with "Select an app to open this msix file" and two options Notepad or Windows Media player.

I have tried this in Windows 11 pro sandbox mode, what's going wrong here, am i missing something ?

Successfully installed the app in Windows 10, OMG the app is so nice, nice to work with !!
Keep up the good work, looking forward  to receive my remote (in february, still so long)