Quick Start

This lengthy manual page gives you a full walkthrough of your first steps with iRedTouch.

At the end you have a fully working remote and a good overview on the features.

1. IR Module configured and online?

Make sure that your module is configured and online. It is strictly recommended to give a static IP address to your modules. This will make startup of iRedTouch faster and ensures that the module can be found reliably. In some network configurations iRedTouch won't find your module at all!

2. Start iRedTouch

On 1st start you will see the first of a bunch of help panels which appear all over the app. With one tap you can make the respective help vanish for ever, but every help dialog will appear at least once:

After closing this help panel you see the start screen:

These are your options:

Tap "Settings" at the top to go to the settings page
Tap "Remotes" to access thelist of your remotes
Tap the circled (i) for info about iRedTouch and access to support
At the bottom you see the connection info, which shows you connected modules at a glance

3. Settings

It is recommened to now go to the Settings page to configure your IR modules.

If you have IRTrans module on your network, these will be recognized automatically. In my setup I see three modules with default names listed at the top of the settings page:

To configure a module tap the respective entry. The IRTrans module configuration page appears:

Tap the name field and enter a descriptive name. If you have many modules you may have difficulties to name the right one. Scroll down the page and tap the "Identify Module" button. The respective IRTrans will flash red for a second:

Change the name and set the number of external (not internal) LEDs of the module. My LAN Controller has 4 externals, most other IRTrans have only one IR blaster built-in:

If you have a module by Global Caché, you have to manually add each module. Tap "Add Module..." on the Settings page. A dialog asks you which kind of module you want to add:

Tap "Global Caché". The configuration page appears, and after a help dialog you simply tap "Read Module Data...":

iRedTouch will now wait for a so-called beacon message of the GC module. These are sent once a minute at least, so it may take up to one minute:

If a module is found, address and name are filled in automatically:

You can change the name but should not change the IP anymore. In general, the other settings are already done, but you may change some LED settings if you have special requirements. Please note that the iTach modules do not have a "Identify" function, yet. On GC-100 modules a flashing LED will show you which module you are configuring:

In the meantime I have configured all my modules:

Now that all settings are done, let's go to create a remote. Close the Settings page and tap "Remotes" on the main page.

4. Remotes List

On 1st start the list of remotes is looking not too good. Tap "Edit" and let's create a remote:

Tap "+" and the editor page appears, with the text cursor waiting for a name of the new remote. In this example I will create a "Apple Remote" ...

5. Remote Editor - Set Name

Tap "Done" if you are finished with the name. This is the Editor main page which let's you access the three major steps of creating a remote:

6. Remote Editor - Set Background Image

Tap "1. Set Background Image". On the next page you'll see the iRedTouch logo as a placeholder, but you'll soon set the background image from three sources:

For now we will choose "Templates", then "Built-In" at the bottom:

There are more options at the bottom, but now we tap the Remote ID 0 and look if it fits:

Tap "Choose" and the background is set:

7. Remote Editor - Layout Buttons

Tap "Next" to go to the 2nd step in creating a remote, the Layout:

For every remote button you want to tap on later, you'll have to specify the area where to tap. This does not need to be 100% exact but the areas should not overlap. Tap with one finger on the image to set some button areas:

The last tapped button is highlighted - and it does not fit the large round button on the image. Simply pinch with two fingers anywhere (!) on the image to resize the circle area:

Tap the selected button again to unselect it. You can also select more than one button than tap "1 Size" and all selected buttons will get the size of the first selected button. Or change the button type to rectangular. This allows you for non-square buttons, too.

To move a button, hold down your finger on a button - which does not need to be selected (!) - then move your finger. The button will "jump up" from beneath your finger, so you can easily adjust the position with no finger hiding the image. The virtual finger in this illustration is just moving the rightmost button:

8. Remote Editor - Learn IR Codes

With all buttons placed, let's go to the next and final step: learning the codes:

If you only have one IR module, please skip the next step.

For every remote you can determine which if your IR modules should be used. You can even tell every single button to use a different module (see later). Tap "Module ..." to set the remote's module. Here you can choose which module to be used for learning and for transmitting the IR codes:

"Close" this setting to start learning.

If you simply want to learn all codes of the remote you just have created, tap "Learn All" and the learning assistant will start.

iRedTouch will highlight the button to be learned, and your part is to transmit the respective code to the IR module. So make sure to have your "real remote" at hand before tapping "Learn All".

To learn a IR code reliably, every kind of module may have a different "optimal" learning distance. The IRTrans and the GC-100 with GC-IRL learner in general learn fine from 2 ft. to 10 ft. An IRTrans with universal learning receiver requires a lower distance: 1 ft. at max! The iTach needs an even closer distance. In my experiments I need to go as close as possible to the small hole besides the power connector to get IR codes learned.

When learning is going on, the red highlight jumps from one button to the next, and you only have to press the real remote accordingly: