You can currently use the application with something that's streaming in the background such as music or video via google cast and with TiVO.
The default case uses background music/video and performs the action specified (Default: Skip). Open the app you want to use to play music or Google Cast to and start the activity. Then switch back to Big-B. We recommend using interaction controls to avoid your user exiting the application unintentionally.
The second case uses TiVO. Navigate to settings in the upper-right corner of the application and switch the "Device Type" to TiVO. You'll get some additional options to configure. One of these will be the IP address of the TiVO. See the help guide on TiVO for more information.
TiVO has some additional options, because it has set-top box functionality. So you'll be able to configure the application to work like a channel up/down if you have two devices, or provide a list of channels for a single device and then the action will cycle through a channel list in the order you specify. This is actually a useful feature even if you don't require any specialized access.
YouTube in the mobile app does not "loop" back to the beginning. When you reach the end of the list, you're effectively done. When you're done, then skipping stops.
Yes, keep in mind that your interaction controls may prevent you from blocking parts of the screen for access. If this is a concern, try out the keyboard controls in the settings once it's available in your release.
Yes, as of 5/31/2020, this was pushed to internal testing and will be out in beta soon.
Try giving this a shot:
Restart Your Device
Go To Settings > Apps > Google Play Store > Storage > Clear data
See this support article.
Not yet. I haven't found a way to provide access to YouTube Kids when it is casting, unfortunately. The app seems to not make this available once the app is running in the background. It would be nice because the YouTube Kids does provide a better experience for toddlers with the ad sections basically eliminated. If you know how I can get this working, let me know and I'll add it to the app.
Well let's see... the original version of this application was written in golang as a web page. I put it together on a raspberry pi in a few hours. After developing it there and finding it useful for my daughter with CP, I started thinking, "How can I make this available to more people?"
At first, I started thinking about hardware and making it a dongle...but this isn't my full time job and I really didn't want to add shipping and receiving to my list of qualifications on my resume. Then it hit me....Android.
Within a few days, I got the development kit installed and started drafting up a prototype to see how feasible it was. Spending about 5 hours every night (7pm-midnight), within a few days I had a grasp on Kotlin and the Android SDK enough to get a prototype that my daughter could use. From there, I needed to make it usable by the masses. That is a whole additional level of effort and clarity.
As I developed it over the next 15 days, I went from something with no configurable options and limited to TiVO use toward something that also allows control of google cast along with a minimum set of features desirable for the use cases focused on helping my daughter and others with specific special needs. At the time of this writing, I've probably placed between the nights and weekends between 80-100 hours making this useful for a larger audience, but it took me only a few half days to prototype.
There's a considerable amount of time that goes into doing your own marketing, graphics design, development, testing, and debugging. I started laughing to myself as I developed this app, do we really need yet another button app or digital remote? In this case....yes! :)
I had done research trying to find something that would work out of the box, but special needs is so broad and this area is so narrow that to get something to do what I need would easily cost me $250. I think any special needs parent understands the bills involved in helping their child are A LOT. For me, the goal of this project is to make it super affordable and help other parents like myself find unique ways to help their kids (or adults) with special needs feel a bit more autonomous. If I've done that, then this project is a success.