Tip of the day: mouse toggle

[Luigi_R]

After several weekend spent to find a remote controller or a gamepad with touchpad/air mouse mode compatible with our Sony Android TV unsuccessfully, I found by chance the app "Mouse Toggle for Android TV" on the play store which is also not compatible with Sony TV but it supports Nvidia Shield, Nexus Player and Mi Box. Since the app uses a functionality that is already in use on our TVs when you run the Opera Browser, I gave it a try. In fact on the Opera Browser the dpad tuns into mouse mode automatically when it goes below the search bar and this is exactly what we would need when using all of those apps that have not been designed to work for Android TV.  I have sideloaded the app version 1.51 (no root) and installed it on the Sony xd8077 device. Once it is installed, go back to the HOME and launch the app, then click on OPEN SYSTEM SETTINGS and surprice a new item has been added under Accessibility (settings-> accessibility): Mouse Toggle. You just need to activate it but for some reason the configuration button is greyed out. This is not an issue because the app comes with some pre-cofigured combination to activate and deactivate the mouse mode. On my remote controller I can switch on the mouse mode either by pressing twice the pause button or by pressing volume- and volume+ sequentially. To deactivate that just press the HOME button. With the mouse mode I can use finally google chrome for instance and scroll the page up and down with the PROG-/+ buttons.

I hope this tip will be useful for the community here but I would like to highlight that the Mouse Toggle for Android TV is not for free and it costs 2.29euro, I have sideloaded it just for a test but it would be great to support the developer that made such useful tool. I will contact the developer and ask him to extend the support to Sony Android TVs and check with him if it would be possible to have scroll up and down functionality in mouse mode.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. I believe Sony could make the effort and develop an app themself to activate this very useful functionality by default in all their TVs 

[EdwinaU]

Hi Luigi,

Thanks for posting your tips and suggestions for developing a mouse toggle app here.

Cheers,
EdwinaU

[Luigi_R]

I believe it might be very useful having by default the possibility to control the mouse pointer directly from the couch using just one remote controller  without the need for an additional mouse. This functionality will open the doors to many not compatible apps today. I was looking for that since I bought the TV😀 Having found this app in the PlayStore has drastically enhanced the user experience with the product. By the way, not for nothing LG already provides remotes with air mouse.

[kinggo01]

this would be brilliant but then I saw the warning that it can collect everything that I type. So I'll pass.

[Luigi_R]

Where did you see that warning? I believe that is the general alert you get when you enable "Unknown sources" under Security & restriction. I have turned it on from the first day I bought the TV since I wanted to sideload the alpha version of kodi 18, but of course if you do not want to take any risk and install only apps from the official channel, do not do that. 

[kinggo01]

On first launch of an "app". During installation the only perrmision was overlay which is understandable. But when I started it from leanback I got a popup window that it can collect all the text I'm typing except passwords. 

[Luigi_R]

I have downloaded the apk from allfreeapk, scanned it with an antivirus, installed and launched it. I did not get any warning but maybe it did not really pay attention to that. By the way it is amazing, now I can use the vpn app which I could not control with the remote controller before.