A 60-Yuan Xiaomi TV Remote Becomes a Handheld Controller for AI Coding

The author writes that working with command-line agents such as OpenAI Codex, Claude Code, WorkBuddy and other CLI tools has shifted the job from typing to describing and confirming. The routine is now to set out a request in natural language, watch the agent produce code and a diff, press enter to approve a command or interrupt it midway, and move between terminal windows to see which agents have finished. Voice input is faster than typing a long prompt, the author argues, but triggering the microphone from the keyboard still keeps the user at the desk with both hands on the keys.

The remote, model RC003, connects over standard Bluetooth Low Energy, so a computer's built-in Bluetooth pairs with it and no USB receiver is needed. The author describes a champagne-gold metal body with a matte finish, buttons that give a crisp click rather than a soft membrane feel, a concave OK key and a direction ring with small raised marks at each of its four points, and a microphone key at the top. The built-in microphone, the author says, is tuned for close-range speech picked up by a television remote, which suits dictating prompts.

Because the voice key transmits proprietary packets, the operating system does not recognize it as an ordinary microphone. The open-source project HD838A/remote-mic-app, also called SayAll, addresses this by creating a virtual audio input device, listed as MiRemoteV 2ch on macOS, and listening for the remote's voice events; it receives audio while the key is held and streams it to the virtual microphone, stopping when the key is released. Combined with an input method that supports push-to-talk, such as WeChat's WeType, holding the button dictates a prompt and releasing it inserts the text.

On macOS, the guide says to hold the remote's home and menu keys together until the indicator blinks, then pair it in the Bluetooth settings. SayAll is installed from its GitHub releases along with an audio driver placed at /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/MiRemoteV2ch.driver, after which MiRemoteV 2ch appears among the sound input devices. WeType's push-to-talk shortcut is then set to the same key, with MiRemoteV 2ch chosen as the audio source. On Windows, the remote is paired through Bluetooth settings and driven by SayAll's preview build or a community adaptation, zhaozhuque/MIC-RC003-Windows; that build maps the voice key to Ctrl + Win by default, and WeType's shortcut is matched to it.

The guide lists three snags. SayAll's first-run onboarding can stall on its final step on some macOS versions, which two defaults write commands in Terminal resolve by setting the completion flags. WeType for Mac may fail to register a lone Fn key, so the author suggests assigning an uncommon combination such as Control + Option + V in both WeType and SayAll, or running a short script that recomputes the CRC32 check on WeType's MMKV settings file. Mapped direction keys can also drop rapid repeated presses, because SayAll filters input until a key settles and adds a wait when a double-click binding exists; clearing the double-click bindings and enabling "Allow Rapid Repeated Presses" removes the delay.

For the terminal workflow, the author uses the multi-agent terminal manager Herdr, running inside Ghostty or any terminal and also compatible with Codex, WorkBuddy (CodeBuddy) and Claude Code. The left and right arrows send Ctrl + Alt + Left and Ctrl + Alt + Right to move between tabs, the up and down arrows send Ctrl + Alt + Up and Ctrl + Alt + Down to move between workspaces, the OK key sends Enter to approve an agent's confirmation, the back key sends Ctrl + C or Esc to interrupt a run, and a long press on the voice key triggers Fn for push-to-talk. Herdr's configuration file accepts arrays of bindings, so tmux-style prefix + p and prefix + n shortcuts can sit alongside the new chords, and the server reloads them with a single command.

The author puts the total cost at about 50 to 60 yuan for the remote, with the rest of the setup made up of free open-source software, and notes that the same pairing steps are used on both platforms. The Windows path depends on a preview build and community adaptations rather than the macOS instructions the guide documents in detail.