OrthoRemote and SmartSDR on Mac

felixk

So I was searching for a very simple bluetooth enabled encoder that I can use to change frequencies in SmartSDR and I found this device:

https://teenage.engineering/products/orthoremote

Very simple design and only about $90US. The best part is that is supports BLE-MIDI and I was hoping that I can just easily hook it up SmartSDR as a midi device and be able to change frequencies.

I purchased it and found out that although it will connect as a midi device it only rotates from a 0-127 value, and for some reason its way to sensitive. I decided to dig a bit and found that I can change the way the remote works by sending it a bluetooth command to enable relative rotation. It worked but unfortunately I couldn't leverage the midi device functionality. I ended up writing a Mac application that will connect to the device and send keyboard up and down commands upon rotation. Then using that keyboard mapping in SmartSDR to change frequencies. It works great!

If anyone is interested here is the Mac application code:

https://github.com/felixk/OrthoRemote

The code is messy and not "production" ready, but it's a start. Feel free to make changes and merge it back into my repo. Would love any suggestions on how to make this even better.

Thanks!
Felix
KC2DVD