# TiVo Slide Remote



## ilovedvrs (Oct 21, 2004)

Does the Tivo Slide Remote work with Roamio?

http://www.tivo.com/my-account/how-to/how-use-tivo-slide-remote-control
NOT LISTED (yet?)
Series3
TiVo HD and HD XL
All TiVo Premiere boxes
TiVo Mini

best remote ever...


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Good question. It will also be interesting to see if this is the first TiVo to break compatibility with the older IR remotes. (Up until now I've been able to use old Series 2 remotes to control Premieres, and vice versa.)


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## ilovedvrs (Oct 21, 2004)

Tivo Slide Remote is bluetooth (plus IR for other things), it uses an included USB bluetooth adapter for communication.


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## ilovedvrs (Oct 21, 2004)

Just got a special call from Tivo about the orders I placed today.
And I asked about this remote.

They said it might work (but it has no support and has been discontinued.)

But they did hint at something better was going to be release shortly that is better!

The Slide does work with the Tivo mini, so I will end up using it in that room if it doesn't work with the Roamio.

If anyone else has the Slide and gets the Roamio before I do, please let us know your results.


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## Resist (Dec 21, 2003)

I'll never understand why Tivo discontinued the Slide Remote, I enjoy using mine.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Resist said:


> I'll never understand why Tivo discontinued the Slide Remote, I enjoy using mine.


Apparently it breaks easily when people drop them. And people seem to drop them alot for some reason.


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## ndoren (Aug 21, 2013)

aaronwt said:


> Apparently it breaks easily when people drop them. And people seem to drop them alot for some reason.


I'll expand a bit on this. There is a ribbon cable with an edge connector that attaches to the circuit board in the lower part of the slide remote. With rough use, including dropping and repeated "aggressive opening/closing" of the slider, the edge connector detaches. This renders the remote useless. Some have had success with careful disassembly of the remote and reattachment of the cable. But you have to know that's where the problem lies. And you have to be meticulous and skilled in disassembly.

Also, the IR LED of the remote is weak. IT's bluetooth, yes, except for the TV functions such as volume, power and input. The IR range for the remote is short and TiVo got a lot of complaints about it. I own two Slide remotes and never had a problem with either. Neall


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

wmcbrine said:


> Good question. It will also be interesting to see if this is the first TiVo to break compatibility with the older IR remotes. (Up until now I've been able to use old Series 2 remotes to control Premieres, and vice versa.)


They said it has an IR receiver for compatibility with universal remotes. So I'd bet it does. They haven't changed the IR codes, except for a few like separating guide and live TV, since the beginning.


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## cyberbeach (Nov 29, 2002)

Resist said:


> I'll never understand why Tivo discontinued the Slide Remote, I enjoy using mine.


I'm glad I have 3 of them, because when you have to enter an email address, password, etc., in order to use some service, the keyboard is a lifesaver.

Searching for shows, I don't mind using the onscreen keyboard because usually you only have to go 3-5 letters in to find what you're looking for.


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## HenryFarpolo (Dec 1, 2008)

As I posted in another thread, the slide works as advertised with the Roamio including the Keyboard.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

cyberbeach said:


> I'm glad I have 3 of them, because when you have to enter an email address, password, etc., in order to use some service, the keyboard is a lifesaver.
> 
> Searching for shows, I don't mind using the onscreen keyboard because usually you only have to go 3-5 letters in to find what you're looking for.


Well, you can also use any old USB wireless dongle keyboard with the TiVo, for occasional use. But the Slide is really nice and convenient. Stupid move, TiVo....


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## bucm4sko24wle2mi (Aug 17, 2009)

ndoren said:


> With rough use, including dropping and repeated "aggressive opening/closing" of the slider, the edge connector detaches. This renders the remote useless.


You do hit the nail on the head in terms of the source of the problem. However, mine stopped working without any of the abuse described. It was, however, successfully fixed in house. I'm not sure what will be different in the new "slide" remote. I think the original had bad design.


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## dma6000 (Mar 12, 2013)

IR: Yes
BT: No


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## dma6000 (Mar 12, 2013)

IR: Yes
BT: Yes


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## DCIFRTHS (Jan 6, 2000)

dma6000 said:


> IR: Yes
> BT: Yes


The BT dongle, for the slide remote, works properly in the Roamio?


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## andyf (Feb 23, 2000)

Yes, I'm using it!


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I'm using mine too. I just plugged the usb adapter in and the slide started working right away. It's been working great so far with my Roamio Pro.


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## dma6000 (Mar 12, 2013)

Roamio does not support Slide Remote BT. It really doesn't work. It will work IR. That's all.


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## swerver (May 18, 2012)

Works fine here. Right off the bat I plugged mine in and even used it for guided setup. Maybe it got set to IR mode, did you try switching it back?

Or maybe you mean without the dongle? Your other posts above are confusing me, you said it was working up there.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

dma6000 said:


> Roamio does not support Slide Remote BT. It really doesn't work. It will work IR. That's all.


My BT slide remote works great with my replacement Pro using RF with the USB Dongle.. It also worked great with my first Roamio Pro.


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## gigaguy (Aug 30, 2013)

Can other party USB BT dongles be used with the slide remote, say, if you lost the orig dongle?


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## astrohip (Jan 7, 2003)

dma6000 said:


> Roamio does not support Slide Remote BT. It really doesn't work. It will work IR. That's all.


Works fine for me. Did the entire setup using it, including the little keyboard to help recreate a gazillion WL.


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## crxssi (Apr 5, 2010)

dma6000 said:


> Roamio does not support Slide Remote BT. It really doesn't work. It will work IR. That's all.


This is just plain WRONG.
The Slide works just fine, as long as you are using the USB dongle with it.


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## HenryFarpolo (Dec 1, 2008)

There are reports in other threads (Dave Zatz) of a newer version of the Slide in the future. The current slide as has been said by the prior and many other posters works just fine.


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## jdmass (Dec 1, 2002)

crxssi said:


> This is just plain WRONG.
> The Slide works just fine, as long as you are using the USB dongle with it.


I'll second this. I've used the slide remote with dongle with no problem on the Tivo Roamio Pro. It did require a reboot, but it has been working fine.

Also, just to add to this, the slide remote also works with the mini. Again, plug the dongle in and reboot. My wife likes it much better than the remote that comes with the mini.


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## pbubel (Jan 31, 2002)

Yup same here. Slide working using the bluetooth dongle on my TiVo Roamio Plus. No problems at all, it seems to coexist just fine with the included IR Remote.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I do notice that with the included RF remote, My Roamio Pro response is a hair faster to the button presses than from my BT SLide remote. But I would have never really noticed if I hadn't tested the speeds from both of them.


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## pbubel (Jan 31, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> I do notice that with the included RF remote, My Roamio Pro response is a hair faster to the button presses than from my BT SLide remote. But I would have never really noticed if I hadn't tested the speeds from both of them.


Yeah I've noticed a ms more lag when using the BT over the built in RF. Very slight difference but its there.


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## severe (Dec 12, 2009)

pbubel said:


> Yeah I've noticed a ms more lag when using the BT over the built in RF. Very slight difference but its there.


Noticed here too. As a matter of fact, I'd since removed the BT dongle and have gone strictly RF. I'd had some issues with some single button presses recognized as double presses. Couldn't get around it. It'd gotten frustrating. Maybe a reboot was in order.


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## alyssa (Dec 7, 2003)

old slide remote issues


I'm trying to get my old slide remote working with my romiaeo. the keyboard doesn't currently work. I've tried pairing but I can't seem to get it into RF mode by using the button press sequence of tivo & the back button hasn't worked. I've pressed the reset button on the dongle.

Does it need to be in rf mode to get the keyboard to work?


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## pbubel (Jan 31, 2002)

Do you have the Bluetooth Dongle connected? The slide uses Bluetooth, not RF.


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## alyssa (Dec 7, 2003)

yes, the BT dongle is connected. should i disconnect it?

ets disconnected the dongle for no joy


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## pbubel (Jan 31, 2002)

The slide remote isn't RF so the pairing process has no impact on it. I use the BT dongle to connect my slide remote to the Roamio without issue. If memory serves there is a pairing button on the BT dongle, give that a try. I'd also try replacing the batteries in the slide remote.

Just to make sure the slide remote is healthy, does it work on your old Tivo still?


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## alyssa (Dec 7, 2003)

i pressed the button on the dongle, is there something else to do to force the dongle/remote pairing?

the slide does seem to be working normally with my premiere. i can search using the keyboard and access most if not all of the features. i didn't test them all so there may be a wonky button or two that i haven't found.


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## pbubel (Jan 31, 2002)

I'm wondering if your not getting good BT signal from the remote to the dongle when its connected too your romaio. I actually ended up using a short bluetooth cable to move the dongle to the front of the Tivo to clear that up. That wasn't specific to the Romaio but the rack I had it in. Haven't had any issues besides that.


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## alyssa (Dec 7, 2003)

i pulled the romieo out from the entertainment center but didn't turn it around. the remote is abt 10-13 foot away from the tivo. How much did that bt cable cost you?

I can move the slide to my premiere and move that remote to the "to sell" unit. 
so all is not lost, i'm just trying to sort it so i can either get it out of the house or use it.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

The remote came with a 6-8" cable to help get a better signal. Some did not know it was behind the plastic shield in the box.

If you have continued problems you could have had an interior plug come loose. Mine happened all the time after a drop onto hardwood until I hot glue-gunned it to the board.


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## alyssa (Dec 7, 2003)

is it just a usb to usb?

i haven't dropped the romieo...i'd hate to mess with the innards until after the one year mark, all tho i'd sure like to know if the usb port is bad. I can't think of another way to test it tho. 
maybe it's time to baffle tivo tech support ... lol


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## pkyzivat (May 8, 2002)

I put the BT dongle in my new Roamio, and my slide remote "works". But it is erratic to the point of unusability. I used to see the same behavior from time to time with my TiVo HD, but most of the time all was fine there. On the Roamio it more often fails than works.

What happens is: some button presses seem to be ignored, maybe forever, maybe not. While waiting I may retry. Then eventually I *may* see a burst of actions. Sometimes it just seems like the keypresses I entered, but delayed. Other times there are many more actions than button presses.

I *suspect* that something is going wrong in the processing of the signals received over bluetooth. Perhaps they are being queued for processing, but serviced in a low priority queue that isn't serviced if there are other background tasks. (But that doesn't explain the cases where I get more actions than button presses.) But it does possibly explain why the bad behavior is intermittent.

I guess it is also possible that it is the remote sending things intermittently. It isn't a physically stuck key. But maybe there could be something similar to what I just described, but on the sending side in the remote.

With the TiVo HD the problem happened infrequently enough that I could still use the slide as my primary remote. With the Roamio it seems to be so bad that I may have to retire it. :-(

Has anyone else seen this behavior?

One other thing: for the slide, is there an alternative to the "back" key on the Roamio remote? At first I couldn't imagine where it would be needed. But after using the Roamio for a day I've encountered a few cases where it seemed to be needed, and the only alternative I could find was the TiVo button. (I don't recall exactly what those cases were.)


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## jwbelcher (Nov 13, 2007)

Yes; its interference. Try a long usb extension cable.


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## buckyswider (Aug 31, 2003)

this is gonna sound crazy, but i swear it's true. on my old comcast remote i once had this problem. lasted a couple weeks. turned out the batteries were in backward. once i replaced them properly, everything worked just fine.

it doesn't make sense, but it's a true story. call ripley.


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## FitzAusTex (May 7, 2014)

I'm having problems with my Roamio not consistently recognizing the Slide Pro RF dongle after a reboot for the past few months. The Pro is definitely paired with the dongle, but the Roamio often won't recognize it. The dongle blinks green with each Pro button press, and the remote finder function works fine. Multiple reboots will sometimes do the trick, but since 20.4.5, I've not gotten it to work once (about 15 reboots tried). I've tried all the unpairing/repairing steps, so I know how to do it. For those wondering why I even use the dongle, I have a severely subpar internal RF receiver in the Roamio. Oh, and tivo sent me a replacement dongle, so I doubt it is the dongle, and I've tried both usb ports.

Very frustrating.


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## pkyzivat (May 8, 2002)

jwbelcher said:


> Yes; its interference. Try a long usb extension cable.


To clarify, are you suggesting that I connect the dongle to the Roamio via an extension cable? (To get it away from the Roamio itself?)

(Update: THANK YOU!!! I tried this and it seems to have fully solved my problem!)


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