Raspberry Pi is a great machine for entertainment media center. XBMC based distributions such as Raspbmc and OpenELEC are becoming more popular because they are easy to set-up, does a lot out of the box but at the same time leaves a lot of room for tweaking.
A remote control is a great add-on to control your media center right from your couch.
This infrared (IR) based remote control kit utilizes GPIO headers on your Raspberry Pi. One of the advantage is it frees up the USB ports so that you can use them to connect to other peripherals such as an external storage. The tiny IR receiver board is carefully designed to plug onto the GPIO headers and suitable for use with many clear case. The remote control unit itself has standard buttons to control a media player.
This kit is supported by LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control) - the standard remote control daemon in Linux which is pre-installed in Raspbmc and OpenELEC. A minimum configuration is required to make it work. With LIRC, it is possible to map each key in the remote control to any function that you wish or you can use the pre-defined configuration file below.
Features:
Supported by Linux Infrared Remote Control (LIRC) - preinstalled in Raspbmc/OSMC and OpenElec distribution
Receiver module plugs directly to Raspberry Pi GPIO headers (6 pins are used. Refer detailed images)
Lightweight remote control unit with standard buttons to control media center
Operating distance: works best between 3 to 8 meters
