Bedtime remote tied to wrist to mute/shut down computer

Question

I like to listen to audio from long youtube videos or youtube playlists before bedtime.

I'd like a remote tied to my wrist that I could use to turn off the laptop, decrease the volume, and mute without me having to move

Alot of remotes seem to be for powerpoint presentation and don't have a secure way to tie a loop around them and connect to your wrist

Could you help me kick around some ideas for this?

Right now, I put a keyboard on a table near my desk which is alright but I'd prefer not to move my body and just push a button as I get very close to falling asleep. Getting up to push the mute button and the windows button/arrow keys/enter required for turning off the computer tends to wake me up

I use a windows 8.1 laptop

Answer 1

There are a few possible solutions for this. You could download the audio (or the full videos) from YouTube using several browser extensions. (I will assume there is no copyright on these videos.) Then copy the videos to an mp3 player or cell phone and listen to it within easy reach (headphones optional). In addition, VLC and some other audio apps allow you to turn on a sleep timer so that they will shut themselves off after an amount of time you choose. This puts the videos or music close at hand, and lets you just go to sleep without turning it off; it will shut off by itself. As an alternative, there are small "mini keyboards", usually with trackpads built in, that are used for home media centers. These are more convenient than a wireless keyboard. Also you could use a computer media player with a sleep timer built in (VLC or others should work on the desktop as well) so you don't need to worry about it. Then just have your computer go into sleep mode or shut off after 10 minutes of inactivity. You can go to sleep and the machine will go quiet then shut off on it's own.

Answer 2

If you don't mind building your own (and have the skills), Netflix released plans for Netflix Socks that use an Arduino Microcontroller to send a pause signal to your TV when the socks detect that you are sleeping. This could certainly be adapter to send a signal to your laptop instead.

Answer 3

You don't mention what OS you're running?

Look for "media centre" remotes

This one from the list you supplied should do the job

I've been using a Microsoft Media Centre remote in a similar situation for years (it's a WinXP MCE remote). Altho' with these remotes it makes them a lot easier to use if you run Media Centre software on your PC (software dedicated to playing music, videos, etc), some of these have YouTube plugins.

If your running Windows there's also a program I use called AMP WinOff that works with all versions of windows that I've tried, although it can be a bit hit & miss in Win10. Great program that will switch your PC off for you with a lot of different options, one of which has a timer that resets after user input (I usually watch a series of 25min videos, use the remote to skip credits which WinOff automatically picks up & restarts the 30min timer. Unless I'm asleep of course).

Answer 4

Although not the remote you described, it's possible to turn off (almost) any pc after a specified amount of time. This will rob you of your choice on when to turn it off, but if you always turn it off after about the same amount of time it's a pretty viable technique.

On windows:
Press the windows-key + R, and type shutdown -s -t numberofseconds. So if you want it to turn off in 30 minutes, type shutdown -s -t 1800. Then press enter, and get to bed.

On linux:
It depends on your distrio, but this usually works: sudo reboot -h -t 1800. Again, 1800 is the number of seconds until shutdown.

On OS-X:
Multiple steps are involved in getting OS-X to do this.

1. Grab your device
2. Aim for the bin
3. Throw
4. Get a linux device
5. Follow my steps for with a linux device.

But in all seriousness, after launching a console/terminal you should be able to use the linux-method.

Answer 5

Listen to the YouTube videos or playlists with your cell phone instead of your computer. You can take it into bed with you. To improve the sound quality, if that's a factor, buy some speakers or use headphones. When you are nearly asleep, just press the button on your phone that shuts it off. That button should be just as simple as the button on a remote, but even more familiar.

Answer 6

Instead of using Remote, one possible solution could be using Wireless Mouse and Keyboard from bed aka Bluetooth Keyboards or Mouse. That way it will be easy to operate the computer from your bed. Hope that helps.