Logitech Arx Control LCD for smartphones and tablets

[Grestorn]

Hi, 

 

have you seen the new Logitech Arx Control solution?

 

It's basically a way to use iOS and Android phones and tablets to display and control various stuff of your gaming PC. 

 

The only requirement - besides the phone or tablet - is to have Logitechs Gaming Software installed. It works with all Logitech keyboards and mice that are supported by the Gaming Software. 

 

And, as far as I understand, there's a documented API which allows you to display custom stuff in the app. I haven't looked at it, but I guess it's not too different from the API that they used for their LCD displays. 

 

Do you want to check that out and give us an idea whether you'd like to support that?

[Fiery]

Yes, we've seen that when they unveiled it a month ago. We definitely will support it, but we'll also introduce our own solution for the same purpose. Stay tuned

Regards,

Fiery

[Grestorn]

Nice to hear! Looking forward to both your own solution and the Logitech one

[Novax1]

excellent news that you support, arx logitech control.
if my participation in the forum is not much. is that to translate from Spanish to English, my explanations or questions are not very understandable.
greetings haceis a great job.

[Fiery]

In the past few weeks we've been working closely with Logitech developers to make this happen. Super nice guys, great professionals working there BTW. So, here's the first AIDA64 beta to implement Logitech Arx smartphone and tablet LCD integration:

http://www.aida64.com/downloads/latesta64xebeta

You can activate it in AIDA64 / main menu / File / Preferences / Hardware Monitoring / LCD / Logitech Arx. Once you activated it, the AIDA64 applet will appear in the Arx app's bottom row of icons. Tap on the AIDA64 icon, and the AIDA64 splash screen should be displayed on your mobile device. It will provide you with information on the resolution that you need to use to get the most out of the LCD layout designer. On iOS devices the default setting should be close to the actual value to use, while on Android it may not match at all, so you need to change both the width and height.

Please note that the Preview Resolution usually will not match the native screen resolution of your device. It's not a problem at all, and that discrepancy is due to the Arx app using an embedded web view. Hence, AIDA64 and other Arx-ready software will need to render a HTML page, and the Arx framework will display that on your mobile device. And the embedded web view has its own ideas on how to manage the pixels of your screen, so don't be surprised that e.g. an iPhone 5 would report a Preview Resolution of 980 x 1140 pixels

After the Preview Resolution is updated on the AIDA64 / main menu / File / Preferences / Hardware Monitoring / LCD page, you can use the same LCD layout designer that you would use for other LCD devices or the SensorPanel.

On phone devices you can use a wider and/or taller LCD Preview Resolution than what your phone supports. So effectively you can have a much larger space to drop sensor readings on, and use scrolling to move around the big virtual "desktop" on your phone.

Known issues and limitations:

1) Graphs and gauges are not implemented yet. We're planning to add them in the next few weeks.

2) The current Android Arx app (Version 172) may not display the AIDA64 applet properly, but instead throw an error message that is almost impossible to read, due to an unfortunate choice of colour scheme by the Arx app. If that happens, just kill the Android app, and start it again. Logitech is already working on a fix.

3) The current Android Arx app (Version 172) will not update the AIDA64 applet when the LCD layout is changed in AIDA64 / main menu / File / Preferences / Hardware Monitoring / LCD / LCD Items. After applying a change on the layout, you need to switch to another Arx applet and then switch back to the AIDA64 applet. Logitech is already working on a fix.

4) Both the iOS and Android Arx app supports screen orientation change only on tablet devices, and page scrolling only on phone devices. We've notified Logitech about this pecularity, but we're not sure in which way would they remedy this.

BTW, if you've got no Logitech Gaming hardware and so you cannot use Arx, check out the new RemoteSensor feature:

http://forums.aida64.com/topic/2636-aida64-web-server-lcd-for-smartphones-and-tablets/

Please let us know how it works on your mobile devices

Thanks,

Fiery

[Grestorn]

Yeah! I was so looking forward to this!

 

Now I have to decide whether to use ArxControl or or your own HTML Server solution. With what are you more comfortable with?

[Fiery]

Yeah! I was so looking forward to this!

 

Now I have to decide whether to use ArxControl or or your own HTML Server solution. With what are you more comfortable with?

They both use the same HTML rendering engine, so their output should be similar. The AIDA64 Web Server solution, more specifically mobile web browsers in general have the unfortunate limitation about power management. While you're viewing AIDA64 sensor values in a mobile web browser, the phone or tablet will go to sleep after a while. Logitech Arx has no such limitation: it will stay active forever and prevent the mobile device from going to sleep.

[Grestorn]

If I didn't miss anything, it doesn't seem to be possible to control two different devices over Arx Control, is it? Like a tablet and a phone? 

[Fiery]

If I didn't miss anything, it doesn't seem to be possible to control two different devices over Arx Control, is it? Like a tablet and a phone?

Arx only supports a single set of applets, but it supports showing the same applets on multiple devices. So the layout you make with AIDA64 can be viewed on a phone and a tablet at the same time, but it has to be a single layout.

You can however use e.g. Arx for your phone and the AIDA64 RemoteSensor for your tablet, or vice versa

[Novax1]

hi

great work you do.

above shows is ok, but does not show all the options for design.

in the window, editing of AIDA64 shows all options but on the phone, mobile, or tablet shows no Gauge and graph

regards

[Novax1]

when running AIDA64   , logitech program closes.

[Fiery]

when running AIDA64   , logitech program closes.

Are you running the latest version of Logitech Gaming Software? (v8.57.145) If yes, then please report the issue to Logitech.

As for graphs and gauges, as I wrote in my previous post, they are under development. We're planning to roll out gauges next week, and graphs a bit later on.

[Novax1]

Thanks for answering

And the statement to logitech

the problem is, as active arx, control, from, AIDA64, that's when

logitech program closes.

thanks very good job.

also showing web. smooth

[Tontcha]

Fiery, since you communicate with Logitech devs, could you possibly ask them if they are planning to add ICS support (android 4.0) for their Arx Connect app? I own at least 3 Logitech gaming devices (G27, G19s and G602) but can't use this nice app since it's 4.1 and higher only. There are lots of ICS devices out there and it's a shame that people can't use them for this.

[Fiery]

Fiery, since you communicate with Logitech devs, could you possibly ask them if they are planning to add ICS support (android 4.0) for their Arx Connect app? I own at least 3 Logitech gaming devices (G27, G19s and G602) but can't use this nice app since it's 4.1 and higher only. There are lots of ICS devices out there and it's a shame that people can't use them for this.

I've forwarded your request to them. However, please note that providing backwards compatibility in Android could be quite complicated and burn a lot of resources. Most Android developers focus on the latest & greatest few iterations of Android, and only provide backwards compatibility if it can be accomplished without too much overhead.

[Fiery]

Fiery, since you communicate with Logitech devs, could you possibly ask them if they are planning to add ICS support (android 4.0) for their Arx Connect app? I own at least 3 Logitech gaming devices (G27, G19s and G602) but can't use this nice app since it's 4.1 and higher only. There are lots of ICS devices out there and it's a shame that people can't use them for this.

Our contact at Logitech says that they will look into it.

[Fiery]

We've added graphs and gauges to both the Logitech Arx and RemoteSensor LCD module in the latest beta release of AIDA64 Extreme available at:

http://www.aida64.com/downloads/latesta64xebeta

Note that the new gauges featured in these modules are called arc gauges. They do not have the same look & feel as the classic AIDA64 gauges (featured in the SensorPanel), but they offer much more flexibility.

[pazu]

Thanks for adding this feature, this alone pretty much sold me on purchasing the G910 as I didn't want to give up my G19 lcd customizations!

 

I've been playing around with the sensor panel setup and it looks great so far, I do have a few small questions/requests.

 

1) Is it possible or can you add options to format the time? I'd like to drop off the seconds on the time and up time to save space.

 

2) Is it possible to change the direction of the graphs? In particular the bar graph. For example, volume might be a vertical bar graph instead of horizontal, or perhaps you might want to reverse the direction of a horizontal bar graph. Below is a picture of what I have come up with so far (just running it on an old iPhone 5 I have, excuse the Dr Who styling!!!), in particular I'd like to run cores 5-8 in the opposite direction (from right to left) to mirror the other side

 

3) This is a long shot, but I've been using LCDHost in conjunction with Aida64 for a while now, mainly for their conditional formatting on text, for example, if my temps hit a certain level, the text would change colours from white, yellow, orange and then red. Would be cool to see that implemented as well.

 

Other than that, there wasn't much I couldn't do, thanks!

 

Eitherway, awesome work with this feature!

 

[Fiery]

Thanks for adding this feature, this alone pretty much sold me on purchasing the G910 as I didn't want to give up my G19 lcd customizations!

 

I've been playing around with the sensor panel setup and it looks great so far, I do have a few small questions/requests.

 

1) Is it possible or can you add options to format the time? I'd like to drop off the seconds on the time and up time to save space.

 

2) Is it possible to change the direction of the graphs? In particular the bar graph. For example, volume might be a vertical bar graph instead of horizontal, or perhaps you might want to reverse the direction of a horizontal bar graph. Below is a picture of what I have come up with so far (just running it on an old iPhone 5 I have, excuse the Dr Who styling!!!), in particular I'd like to run cores 5-8 in the opposite direction (from right to left) to mirror the other side

 

3) This is a long shot, but I've been using LCDHost in conjunction with Aida64 for a while now, mainly for their conditional formatting on text, for example, if my temps hit a certain level, the text would change colours from white, yellow, orange and then red. Would be cool to see that implemented as well.

 

Other than that, there wasn't much I couldn't do, thanks!

 

Eitherway, awesome work with this feature!

I'm glad you like our progress so far. We'll make sure to improve on the Arx module in the near future.

1) We'll add that in one of the upcoming beta updates to AIDA64.

2) You can already use vertical bar graphs if you specify a bar width smaller than the bar height As for bar direction, we'll work on that

3) Conditional formatting would add one more layer of complexity on the already quite complicated LCD item configuration panel But, maybe we can come up with something that is easy to follow by less experienced users. We'll also have to make sure the panel doesn't get even more crowded. What kind of text properties would you like to update based on the item state? Only the text colour? Would you like to use the conditional formatting for Simple Sensor Items?

[pazu]

thanks for the reply

 

1) Awesome

 

2) Should have worked out the vertical bit! For the reverse direction, I did try reversing the scale, so putting in 100 as the min and 0 as the max to try and reverse it, but the colours misbehaved and didn't quite work.

 

3) I agree on the complexity, LCDHost has a good implementation, but it is a hard to get your head around. Perhaps you could implement something similar to what you have done with the graphs, so 4 steps with different colours. LCDHost would allow pretty much unlimited conditions, but I rarely used more than 4 myself (that's just me though). Making it similar to that graph setup would make it easy to understand, you could then just add a second tab or something in the simple sensors group.

 

In terms of what properties, mainly colour and perhaps 'bold' but certainly no more than what stylings you have available now when formatting the text.

 

In terms of what items would work well with conditional formatting, I think the simple sensors would be the main one with perhaps static images the other.I am using conditional formatting on static images which is useful, for example on my G19 I have a picture of a speaker, when I hit the mute button, that picture changes to an image of a speaker with a cross through it or you have hidden pictures with an exclamation mark that only display when certain criteria is met (max temps exceed for example). This could be implemented on the simple sensors though where you could choose to style the text or you could chose an image instead (which could be linked to the 4 conditions like in the graph).

 

 

Just my 2 cents, hope that helps

[pazu]

Hi again, 

 

So I've done some more playing and fiddling, would there be an opportunity to make the summary items that Aida64 has, available in the sensorpanel/lcd options? I came across it when I wanted to display my local IP address. Aida64 obviously pulls that info and a lot more off the local machine, its just not available on the panel options menu?

 

I upgraded to version 5 today, looks great and moving the list of items for the sensor panel to the right is a god send!!!

 

Cheers,

Pazu

[Fiery]

So I've done some more playing and fiddling, would there be an opportunity to make the summary items that Aida64 has, available in the sensorpanel/lcd options? I came across it when I wanted to display my local IP address. Aida64 obviously pulls that info and a lot more off the local machine, its just not available on the panel options menu?

It's actually a complicated subject that we've already started debating with Darkje in the following forum topic:

http://forums.aida64.com/topic/2616-sensorpanel-suggestion-and-fan-control/

We'll keep gathering feedbacks and requests from AIDA64 v5.00 users, and in case there's a considerable demand for adding more constant (as opposed to frequently changing) values, we'll expand the list of items to monitor in the next AIDA64 update.

I upgraded to version 5 today, looks great and moving the list of items for the sensor panel to the right is a god send!!!

I'm glad you like it, we've spent quite some time to come up with a solution that is more user-friendly than the old Preferences layout We're planning to apply more changes towards that direction through January and February, so make sure to post your ideas into this topic or other SensorPanel, RemoteSensor or Logitech Arx related forum topics

[pazu]

just had a read of that thread and it makes sense, I for one would be happy with a refresh of data on application start up, almost all of the data is static, so no real need to refresh it every few seconds

[Fiery]

just had a read of that thread and it makes sense, I for one would be happy with a refresh of data on application start up, almost all of the data is static, so no real need to refresh it every few seconds

Exactly. The problem with that is that currently AIDA64 supports completely static labels with a content specified by the user (called Static Labels) and simple sensor items, but the proposed idea of having static labels that are updated once at application startup is something that would be in between those two sensor item types. Something called Semi-Static Labels or Session-Static Labels would do the job, but it's not something that would work with the current AIDA64 hardware monitoring framework.

[pazu]

how about a macro style approach? Static labels that when you set the value to %1 (or something that signals a variable), which is then just linked to a flat txt file?

 

That would allow advanced users to populate a text file via their own methods (1 or 2 lines of powershell or a few more of vbscript), while keeping the static approach in that when AIDA64 loads, it will simply load the template and in turn any variables listed in the static items, which would come from a static file?

 

I completely understand where you are coming from, and doing it as a 'semi-static' model would seem like a lot of work, for potentially little value to many users. A macro style approach might be an easier approach (however I'm only a user, no idea of the nuts and bolts under the hood!).