Overview

The VAIO Zone Remote Control is a small application I came up with that allows a user to control Sony’s VAIO Zone entertainment content browser via Bluetooth. Now you can play music, view photos or watch videos in VAIO Zone from the comforts of your couch.

Hook your Sony VAIO to a living room display and you can truly enjoy a media center experience.

Requirements

A Sony VAIO computer running VAIO Zone (any versions).

Bluetooth software that supports HID (Human Interface Device) profiles.

Any of the following Sony Ericsson cellphones: K750, W800, Z520, K600, W600, W550, W900, W810, K610, K800, K790, Z530, W300, K510, W700, Z525, Z550, W850, Z710, W710 or Z610.

Development Origins

VAIO Zone is a media player application that comes preinstalled on certain Sony VAIO computers. Billed as an ‘Entertainment Content Browser’, VAIO Zone is Sony’s answer to Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition and Apple’s Front Row. The application features slick Flash-based animation to handsomely showcases your music, pictures and video library, and, with the appropriate hardware installed, even records TV programs.

vaio_zone_01.jpg

As a VAIO TR5 owner, I have long bemoaned the fact that my VAIO does not come with a dedicated remote control like the one that ships with the Type FJ Light VAIO (which does control VAIO Zone), or like the Apple Remote Control that ships with iMacs and MacBooks (which controls Front Row).

Fortuitously, there is an application called Remote Control present on my Sony Ericsson K750i cellphone that allows me to control my laptop via Bluetooth. Out of the box, the Remote Control application turns the K750i into a HID (Human Interface Device) that controls the desktop, Windows Media Player, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint. You can find Remote Control under Entertainment.

Furthermore, as Sony Ericsson provides a developers’ tool for users to create custom HID profiles, I decided I would turn my K750i into a remote control that will interface with VAIO Zone.

Installation

Download the VAIO ZONE.HID file from the following URL:

http://www.MegaShare.com/41755

Use Bluetooth to send this file from your computer to your Sony Ericsson phone; right-click on the file and choose Send to > Bluetooth Device.

Once the file has been transferred, you will be prompted – on the screen of your cellphone – if you want to save the file and if you want to ‘Add to Remote control’. Press ‘Yes’.

You will now see this displayed on the screen of your cellphone.

vaiozone-rev1-bw.jpg

That’s it! You now have a VAIO Zone remote control! Enjoy!

Interface Design

vzmap.jpg

While mapping VAIO Zone’s various keyboard shortcut keys to the keypad of the K750i, I took into consideration the following factors which determined the final mapping approach I adopted.

Functionality – A user should be able to control as many functions of VAIO Zone with the cellphone as is possible with every button found on the cellphone.

Ease of use – The various mapped functions should be logically grouped while still fulfiling the aforementioned factor.

In the final design, every function in VAIO Zone can be triggered by the cellphone with the exception of fast-forward and rewind. Quite simply, I ran out of buttons on the cellphone to map these two functions. Furthermore, if VAIO Zone is meant to used for kiosk-like playback, fast-forwarding and rewinding are secondary to the cause.

A shortcoming of the Remote Control application in the cellphone is that the desktop application it controls has to first be launched; i.e., the cellphone cannot start the desktop application via Bluetooth.

It is for this reason that I have mapped mouse functionality to the navigational dial of the cellphone. This way, a user is able to run Remote Control on the cellphone and use the nav dial as a mouse pointer to open VAIO Zone on the desktop.

Design Colophon

The HID profile file was developed using the Sony Ericsson Bluetooth Remote Control 2.30 tool. The interface was designed in Adobe Photoshop using existing icons and graphics pulled from the documentation accompanying the developers’ tool.

Disclaimer

This application is provided at no cost and with no liabilities on my part. Feel free to modify the HID file to your own liking.