Hello All,

I've been an empeg RIO car owner for 6 years. There are two problem items which I cannot seem to solve myself upon my new installation with a new vehicle. (BTW this is the 4th vehicle my empeg has rested in and she's still alive and well!)

#1 My OEM remote that came with mpeg has a battery issue. It seems that the battery dies within a week when I'm not even using it. I REALLY want to use an alternative/programmable remote. Does anyone have any recommendations or know of a programmable remote that works with empeg RIO car --without having to hack into the EPROM of the remote - where which I have no clue how to start with that one.

#2 I have a 2006 Nissian Altima w/ volume control on the steering wheel. I would very much like it to work with EMPEG. I know I'm not the first to have this pipe dream. Does EMPEG support steering wheel control? Ultimately this could negate the need for a remote control.

If any of the material I am seeking has already been discussed could someone be so kind as to leave me a link or a search phrase? Thanks very much!

Best Regards,
Nick

Maybe the remote problem is the battery contacts check here

If you can get something to convert the Nissan to sony you can plug that into the empeg tuner. Otherwise you can get a device that converts the steering wheel input to infrared and control the empeg that way. I can't remember exactly what it was called something like SW1X or SWIX it was from PAC digital.

Hi,
With the Hijack kernel you can easily program almost any remote to control the empeg. You need to look at the ir_translate options which you can find here.

I've never personally hooked up a steering wheel stalk controller, however it is possible. I'd check this page, and use the stalk keyword to search around on the BBS.

Here is the website for PAC http://www.pac-audio.com/

One thing to note about the SWiX is that it does not have the ability to distinguish between short and long button presses, so you will not have the same functionality that you get from even the front panel controls. The empeg remote sends an IR code when a button is pressed, and a second when the button is released. The SWiX just sends an IR code when a button is pressed, and that's it. This is why I haven't installed one.

I just had an idea, though -- for those using a SWiX (and other remotes) that still want long-press functions to be available, it should be possible to add a "double-click" option to hijack, so that, if it gets an identical IR code within a certain number of jiffies (configurable, of course, for those of us with faster/slower fingers), to translate those two button codes to a long-press of that button. I expect it should be possible, given that hijack already has IR translate capability -- perhaps Mark can comment on the feasibility and complexity of implementing this.

That is true but when I was using one all I really cared about was volume and skip so it didn"t matter.

Or you could just use ir_translate so that long presses aren't required at all....no double clickery required.

EDIT: Ah...nevermind...I get what you're trying to do...get two functions per steering wheel button.

I just typed a huge message and after I hit continue I got a dumb message about a form and some other crap... so when I hit back on my browser like it told me to...., poof! message be gone! Quite Frustrating!

At any rate, thanks for your responses, however..... I'm a business major so I'm not sure how to program the kernel (watever that means) or re-work the parameters on the universal transphincter :-). I'm looking for a solution for the "every day joe" or in this case Nick. I will try to decode the meanings in the previous posts. Hopefully I can find my way back to my remote days - whether it be by steering wheel controls or infared remotes. Thanks again for all of your help.

Kindest Regards,

Nick

Regarding your remote: Go into the For Sale forum and put up a post asking if anyone has any remotes for sale. There are two remotes that work by default.

Also: If you have an old IR remote lying around that you're not using for anything else, I think it's possible to do some tricks to the player that will let it recognize that remote. They don't involve programming, but they do involve installing the hijack kernel, calling up its IR codes menu, pushing buttons on the remote and writing down the codes you see, then editing the config file on the player by adding an ir_translate section to it that will accept the remote's codes.

At least I think that's do-able. Haven't tried it myself actually. But I'll bet we folks here on the BBS could coach you through it. Or just maybe those links I gave you would be enough?

Tony - you are BEST! I really apprciate your time and attention with this. I'm going to give it a whirl I'll let you know how things pan out after I try what you've recommended. Thanks very much!

Best,

Nick

PS.- Stinking browsers!!!!