Your smartphone as controller for your online game

[PlugPIN 3]

Hi Everyone,

 

We have just launched a new service and JS library named PlugPIN. This free service makes it really easy for developers to turn smartphones into remote controls for games, apps or devices. 

You can check it out at:

 

www.plugpin.com

 

The idea about plugpin is that you can connect any smartphone to any device anywhere. Nog passwords, login's etc. Just fire up your browser, enter the pin and go. 

Currently there are just two examples displaying the functionality on the homepage. But there are some more examples in the documentation. Please check them out. And if you like it then don't hesitate to test it out. 

 

We would really like to know what you think about it and if you would like to use it. 

If you have any questions or remarks concerning PlugPIN JS. Then please don't hesitate to contact us. We are glad to help you out. 

 

Joost @ PlugPIN

[totor 41]

Hi, how does it compare to nunchuckjs?

[b10b 165]

Sorry, didn't work for me.  No PIN was provided (on desktop).

 

Edit: on repeated attempts, I did receive a PIN (after approx 3 mins of page inactivity).  Then mobile fails to connect (radial spinner, followed by back to PIN entry form).  Testing on Chrome Windows and S3.

 

Big fan of the concept, and have seen similar methods used before - so want this to work!

[PlugPIN 3]

Hi b10b,

 

Thanks a lot for your feedback. We just launched the service one week ago and are now ironing out all the bugs. I have also noticed that the PIN sometimes takes long to load. We are testing this to see if we can fix it.  We also noticed that for Android 4.3 and lower the mobile site does not connect. We will be fixing this as soon as possible.  I will get back on this.

[turnA 21]

I definitely love this concept and have implemented it myself in the past using peerjs and smartfoxserver (manually setting up the server myself).

I will try to look at the code soon, but after a first test run (it works great), I think there should be an option that let client login/entering the PIN from custom URL/page (without entering plugp.in). Maybe you can provide client side API to connect to plugpin? 

 

Good luck with it!

[PlugPIN 3]

Hi turnA, thank you for your feedback. Good to hear that you love the concept. If you get around to testing the service, then please let us know if you encounter any problems or if you have any other remarks. 

Concerning your suggestion for a custom URL/page. We have a list of features that we would like to implement. A custom URL would be one of them. But for now our main focus is first to get the service fully bug free so that we can guarantee that it works on any smartphone and on any desktop anytime. 

[TimHamilton 5]

Really like the idea of this....but I can't get it to work. Going to plugp.in on my android just shows 'connecting' forever. Tried chrome and firefox. I run kitkat 4.4.2.

 

Also tried in genymotion with a 4.4.4 image, and a 4.3 image. Neither would connect.

[PlugPIN 3]

Hi Tim,

 

Thanks for the feedback. We discovered that in the current build of the mobile page we are using elements that are not supported by andriod 4.4 or lower. We are currently working on this now. We hope to be able to update the mobile page at the beginning of this week so that the mobile connection will work for all android devices.

I wil post a update here when we have fixed this issue.  

[PlugPIN 3]

The last two weeks we have been fixing some bugs in the PlugPIN service to get any smartphone connected to any device. Sadly enough there are some older browsers and OS’s that do not support websockets.

 

On the desktop side:

Older desktop browsers such as ie8 & 9 and safari 5 do not support websockets. From now on, the PLUGPIN javascript object will be set to null if a browser does not support websockets (or an incompatible protocol).

 

On the smartphone side:

Apparently some versions of android 4.4 and  4.3 and lower versions than 4.3 do not support websockets. So we have build in a notification on the controller side that gives an indication to the user when their browser is too old to make use of PlugPIN.

 

With the above adjustments we hope to have covered the most pressing connection problems. If anybody is still experiencing any problems. please let us know.

 

Currently we are working on extending the service with some extra features namely:

• shortcuts: so that a user can add a permanent link to a device in the controller, so they do not have to enter the PIN every time they want to connect

• text entry from the controller

• possibility for apps to have a static connection code, to enable multiple people to connect to the same app at the same time (with one code).

 

Sometime soon we will also be releasing a new demo and some simple tutorials explaining how to implement PlugPIN. So stay tuned.

We would also really like to learn what other features you would like to see. Any feedback is more then welcome.

[b10b 165]

Nice, that works for my default setup now and I am a huge fan of multi device mashups.  Thank you for the update.

 

Not wishing to detract from what you have achieved here, but ... I think that websocket dependency is a dodge that will damage adoption significantly.  I would suggest overcoming the limitations using alternative web technology / seamless fallbacks.  Granted the experience will have higher latency, but that's better than it not working at all.  Consider the adoption in web rich media advertising as a growing market example, it's just not viable to have such a high-end dependency (as it stands in mid 2015) at the core of a campaign.

 

For me, adoption of such a service relies on providing more comprehensive edge case cover than I would have the time / budget to code per project.  Please carry on and keep us updated!

[PlugPIN 3]

Hi b10b,

 

Good to hear that it works for your default setup!

 

And thank you for your feedback / suggestion about alternative web technology / seamless fallbacks. We will be looking in to this.

 

If anybody else has more comments or feature requests. Feedback is more then welcome!

[remvst 84]

Gosh that's so amazing

 

I remember https://www.muzzley.com/ had an app to have a controller on your smartphone, but you had to download the app, and apparently it didn't work that well since they changed their strategy.

 

I'll probably give it a try for a game