HouseBot

Has anyone that is using Apple TV (1st gen) with HB developed a sequence (task, IR delays, whatever..) that puts the Apple TV into a standby state? You can do this via the Apple TV remote by pressing and holding the Play/Pause button for about 6 secs. But not sure how to best replicate that via HB. I can create a task that changes the Send IR command=Play, delay x ms, then repeat until 6 seconds has elapsed. But not sure that will work (haven't tried it - the task would be lengthy with all the play+delay+play+delay... commands). I could also do something similar with a created property that is assoc. with the Play IR cmd, and add 1 ms delay between a bunch of plays. But that seems even goofier. Could also do it with a VBscript and a loop. (Could also leave the stupid thing ON all the time...) Maybe I could capture the 6 sec IR stream from the remote with USB-UIRT...
Bottom line: any successfully pulled this off?

Steve, I can't help you with the IR part, and I don't have an ATV. I do have a house full of Apples though, and if you want to pursue enabling ssh on the ATV then I can definitely help you sleep and wake it over ethernet.

Terry

That's certainly more elegant than a passel of play, delay, play, delay, play.....
What's involved?

The early versions (before the new tiny black models)of the ATVs run a slimmed down version of Apple's OSX OS - So it's a Unix OS under the skin. To enable SSH (a form of secure telnet) you'll need to unlock (think jailbreak) the OS. Its mostly painless and can be done without opening the box physically. Google is your friend here - search for "Apple TV enable SSH" and you find several different avenues to get you to your goal. Once SSh is enabled on the ATV, you can use a tool like puTTY to log into the box remotely. From that point we can setup scripts, enable a webserver, or any number of different ways to do what you want. You could even turn it into a full fleged "server" for filesharing, etc. Since the ATV has a standby menu option, these most likely a script/application that gets run in the background when that menu item is selected that you could use. As an example the command on regular OSX would be something like: osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to sleep' which basically runs a piece of Applescript to sleep the Mac.

Probably a good project for one of these icy Alabama weekends... :)

Terry

Thanks; that's a good idea - tackle it whenever the weather turns bad (Har!).
I did a bid of poking around this morning, looking up SSH, and found some puTTY references. So that tells me I was "warm" on the trail. Let's see how much trouble I can get into now...
Thanks terry,