Amazon FireTV. Any chance Corona SDK will support this?

Solar2D Android
#1

https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/solutions/devices/fire-tv

Amazon announced a new gaming/app platform, Amazon FireTV.  It’s a little set top box.  It would be cool if Corona SDK could support this platform (it has some interesting multi player and multi screen features).  

I realize it’s a bit of a risk for CL to support another platform, but it might be a fairly simple port compared to, say, Windows phone.  Amazon does know how to market to its customers and I’ve personally made more in app sales from the Amazon store than from Apple or Google stores.

#2

Yep, here we go again.  The Fire TV is basically another forked Android box like Ouya and Game Stick , and since their Fire OS is what makes up their Kindle tablet line, it probably wasn’t too long of a development road to extend it to their Fire TV by tweaking it and adding hardware controller support.

I’d actually be surprised if Corona doesn’t support this eventually, but I’m sure they probably have their hands full in trying to get Windows Phone support out the door, not to mention building for the Mac App Store and Windows Store.

#3

I managed up upload one of my apps to the Fire TV and it seems to work fine except I need to support the remote

#4

How did you upload your app?

#5

You can add a device via adb using the IP address and then upload via adb via network

https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/asb/app-install.html

#6

@cublah, have you tried to setup the key event and axis handlers.  We don’t know yet, but if the game controller and remote are just HID based, then there should be some events generated. 

And @BeyondTech, this isn’t quite the same trying to support a different platform.  It should just be another Android device and hopefully with minimal tweaks to get it going.

#7

I uploaded an test app to see if it would run. It did, but haven’t figured out the controller crap yet. I did get something working in unity, as really it’s just another android version and just had to generalize the player controller (Of course, Unity is well beyond the scope of this discussion)

I think it’s supposed to be just HID, but the odd thing is I have a ps4 ds4 controller, which I can pair with fire tv, but the triggers don’t work on the built in game “Sev Zero” which is basically a 3rd person gears of war tower defense type game. Says pull R2 to fire, but nothing happens. Apparently it should work, but we’ll see. 

Too early to tell at this point. I have a few ideas I want to try out and see how to get things working. 

#8

The app would have to know how to map the keys.  R2 is an axis type input and the axis numbers vary from device to device.  And if the app doesn’t map it right, it won’t work.  See:

http://coronalabs.com/blog/2013/08/27/tutorial-introduction-to-game-controllers/

and

http://coronalabs.com/blog/2013/09/24/tutorial-controllers-and-axis/

The last one should show you how to setup a mapping system for your app so that it will work with wider variety of controllers.

Rob

#9

Thanks for the links, Rob.  Don’t mean to hijack the thread (I opened up a new one but remained unanswered), but wanted to know if the above tutorials will work for iOS Bluetooth controllers including iCade and the Logitech and Moga ones.

Time to pick up a Fire TV!

#10

Controller’s on iOS are a different beast.  Apple has their MFI program (Made of IDevices) where they dictate many things on what controllers including the shape of buttons.  Controller makers have been slow to adopt the MFI program due to the requirements (based on what I read on the tech blogs).  I dug through the controller API and the events seem similar to what we get for Android.  However, we have not built in support for it.

I suspect that once there are more controllers out there, there will be more need for us to include this in the core API, but for now, the controller support is Android only.

I’m thinking about picking up one too. 

#11

So I made a simple app to print text on the screen and test the key inputs and it seems to work fine :slight_smile:

So onto Fire TV apps :slight_smile:

local function onKeyEvent( event )

   local phase = event.phase

   local keyName = event.keyName

    myprint (“keyName:”…keyName…"  phase:"…phase)

    

    return true

end

Runtime:addEventListener( “key” , onKeyEvent )

tvtest.jpg

#12

Looks like you can program for the remote!   This is cool!!!

Rob

#13

Absolutely !!

#14

Amazon approved my game for Fire TV this morning: http://www.amazon.com/GP-Animations-Maddie-Bears-Snack/dp/B00JOQW77U

Ed Maurina (www.RoamingGamer.com) was a huge help in creating the lua sheet that controls the Fire TV remote buttons.

#15

Yep, here we go again.  The Fire TV is basically another forked Android box like Ouya and Game Stick , and since their Fire OS is what makes up their Kindle tablet line, it probably wasn’t too long of a development road to extend it to their Fire TV by tweaking it and adding hardware controller support.

I’d actually be surprised if Corona doesn’t support this eventually, but I’m sure they probably have their hands full in trying to get Windows Phone support out the door, not to mention building for the Mac App Store and Windows Store.

#16

I managed up upload one of my apps to the Fire TV and it seems to work fine except I need to support the remote

#17

How did you upload your app?

#18

You can add a device via adb using the IP address and then upload via adb via network

https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/asb/app-install.html

#19

@cublah, have you tried to setup the key event and axis handlers.  We don’t know yet, but if the game controller and remote are just HID based, then there should be some events generated. 

And @BeyondTech, this isn’t quite the same trying to support a different platform.  It should just be another Android device and hopefully with minimal tweaks to get it going.

#20

I uploaded an test app to see if it would run. It did, but haven’t figured out the controller crap yet. I did get something working in unity, as really it’s just another android version and just had to generalize the player controller (Of course, Unity is well beyond the scope of this discussion)

I think it’s supposed to be just HID, but the odd thing is I have a ps4 ds4 controller, which I can pair with fire tv, but the triggers don’t work on the built in game “Sev Zero” which is basically a 3rd person gears of war tower defense type game. Says pull R2 to fire, but nothing happens. Apparently it should work, but we’ll see. 

Too early to tell at this point. I have a few ideas I want to try out and see how to get things working.