How do I implement fast forward & fast backward in the TV card?

Astrion Astrion - Core Discussions
1

I’m using the TV card to control my TV, Fire TV and settop box using scripts. This works but I didn’t find a way to use fast forward & fast backward, for example when using the Fire TV. I believe the issue is that there is no “long press left” and “long press right” button option to chose from in the TV card. Or is there another way to do that?

2

Hi @starob,

On the Astrion Remote, the following physical buttons already support long press:

  • Up / Down / Left / Right

  • Volume +/-

  • Channel +/-

So technically, you can use long press to implement behaviors like fast forward / rewind.

:wrench: How to Achieve Fast Forward / Rewind

The recommended approach right now is:

Create a script in Home Assistant, for example:

  • One script for fast forward

  • One script for rewind

These scripts can either:

  • Send repeated commands (simulate holding LEFT/RIGHT), or

  • Call native commands like FAST_FORWARD / REWIND (if your device supports them)

Then:

:backhand_index_pointing_right: Bind these scripts to the long press action of a button (e.g. LEFT / RIGHT or Channel +/-)

:warning: Limitation

The trade-off with this approach is:

  • You may need to sacrifice the original long-press function of that button

  • Or reassign buttons in a way that’s not fully ideal for your setup

:rocket: Future Improvements

We recognize this limitation, and improving media control flexibility is already on our roadmap, including:

  • More flexible button mapping

  • Better support for media-specific actions (like FF/RW)

  • Potentially more dedicated or customizable buttons

So in short:
:check_mark: It’s achievable today via scripts + long press
:warning: But not yet perfectly native — improvements are coming

3

I didn’t find a way to do that. How can this be done?

4

What I mean is, that button supports long presses. A single click is a 1-step movement, and a long press is a quick jump movement.

5

This does not work for me for some reason. What are the requirements for that to work?

6

I’m trying to implement this on the current Astrion v1.1.5 / RosCard v1.1.3 version.

In the TV Card visual editor I can bind scripts to the direction buttons, but I only see one action per button. I can map Right to script.apple_tv_right, for example, but I do not see a separate field for “long press Right” that could be mapped to script.apple_tv_skip_forward.

Is long-press mapping currently exposed in the TV Card UI, or does it require manual YAML configuration? If YAML is required, could you provide a minimal example showing short-press Left/Right mapped to navigation scripts and long-press Left/Right mapped to skip-backward/skip-forward scripts?

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@grahamn1956
Welcome to the forum!

At the moment, long-press mapping is not yet exposed in the current TV Card visual editor UI, so what you are seeing is expected behavior in v1.1.5 / RosCard v1.1.3.

Currently:

  • each direction button supports a single assigned action in the visual editor

  • separate short-press / long-press assignment fields are not yet available in the UI

  • and there is not yet an officially documented YAML schema for independent long-press DPAD actions

So right now, this functionality is still part of our future customization roadmap rather than a completed feature.

However, your exact use case:

  • short press Left/Right → navigation

  • long press Left/Right → rewind/fast-forward

…is actually one of the primary scenarios we had in mind internally when discussing advanced DPAD behavior.

The complexity mainly comes from the interaction model itself:
once long-press detection is introduced, the remote must delay the short-press trigger slightly in order to determine whether the action becomes a hold event or a tap event. This affects media responsiveness and transport behavior, so we are trying to design it carefully to feel natural.

We are currently evaluating:

  • per-button short/long press assignment

  • global button mapping layers

  • contextual button profiles

  • and YAML/API-level advanced configuration support

At this stage there is unfortunately no supported YAML example yet because the underlying long-press action layer is not fully implemented publicly.

But your feedback is extremely valuable because it helps validate that this feature is genuinely important for advanced media workflows :+1:

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