Ace accessories for your home theatre PC

The key to a really great lounge room PC comes from couchfriendly controls. Bennett Ring tests the plethora of options.

Having a home theatre PC (HTPC) is an utter delight, allowing you to store thousands of movies and games in a box the size of a DVD player. Hook it up to a bigscreen TV – or even better, a projector as I have – and you’ve suddenly got an incredible new way to view and play your content. There’s just one small problem; how on Earth do you control your box all the way back from your couch? Luckily there are plenty of options.

If you’re just using your HTPC for viewing films, a simple keyboard and mouse combination will do the job. There’s two solutions to this. Firstly, a keyboard with integrated track pad, such as the Logitech keyboard reviewed later in this article. Secondly, you can use a wireless keyboard and mouse combo, but you’ll need a special lapboard to hold them on. You can buy one of these, like the Razer model reviewed later, or build your own – we’ll show you how to do the latter.

If you’re going to be gaming, the easiest route is to go with a wireless PC compatible controller. We’re a big fan of the Steam controller, but there are plenty of options. Or, if you’re a serious first-person shooter fan, a wireless mouse and keyboard combo with a lapboard is the way to go.

One thing to note when buying a gaming controller to control Windows from the couch is that it’s going to need to have remappable buttons. Also, it should have software support for mouse control. However, this is actually quite rare, but there is a solution in the form of third party software that turns your controller’s stick movements into mouse cursor movements.

Arguably the most popular is Gopher360, which is available at https://github.com/Tylemagne/ Gopher360/releases. From here you can grab the latest build. Simply install it and you’ll find that your controller should now be able to control your cursor with your control pad. There’s one slight issue though; it needs to be running for your sticks to work as a cursor. This means you need to start it up every time you start your HTPC, so you’ll need a regular keyboard to do so… or will you? Nope. You can simply add Gopher360 to your Startup folder, so that it automatically runs every time you start your HTPC.

Head to your File Explorer, then copy the Gopher360 file. Hit the Windows + R key and the Run window will open. Type shell:startup then click OK, which will open your Startup folder. Simply right click on a blank area in the new Startup folder and paste the Gopher360 file. Voila – every time you start your PC there’s no need for a meddlesome keyboard at all. Too easy!

Regardless of how you use your HTPC, the following roundup of HTPC controllers covers all the bases.