I used Yatse for many years to control xbmc then Kodi. Always worked well enough though requires to be talk with the media center on the same network so might have to shut VPN and such. I've never tried with jellyfin as I now have a physical remote for my Kodi set top box.

You might be interested in the https://libreelec.tv/ project. Kodi for low end devices. Which uses HDMI CEC to allow for your tv remote to control the Kodi interface.

> I really like the Chromecast model, browsing on a mobile device to select content is just a much better UX.

I feel the same. I have a Kodi setup with LibreELEC and I just feel like it does too much and is inconvenient for my use. I don't really want to build and manage a "media library" on the device that's playing back content (small NUC-like computer connected to a projector). I wish I could just send a file to it from my computer or phone and instantly play it back without having to go through the whole media center style UI thing.

Have you tried Yatse?

Looking this up it says it’s a Kodi remote for Android, I don’t have an Android phone in use at the moment.

Can you not? I have the Plex app installed on my Chromecast, but casting works fine.

Yes, I got my old Chromecast to work with Jellyfin. Heads up: You'll have to redirect DNS from 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 to your router if you'd like to use a local hostname (i.e. in your LAN), though, otherwise the Chromecast will never use your DHCP advertised DNS service.

When I used a Chromecast, I was fond of an even more direct method. On my laptop I ran a Node CLI called "peercast" [0] with a single argument (a magnet link), and it streamed a video file while downloading its torrent, and since it called the torrent library directly, it could prioritize downloading the earlier chunks of the file so I could start streaming the video before the download completed.

It looks like that repo hasn't been updated in a while, although it might still work. It's an offshoot of peerflix [1], a Node CLI that streams video from a torrent to an h264 playlist. So without peercast I would just open my browser to the local network address where peerflix was hosting the h264 playlist, and use the Cast button to stream it to my device (which I believe technically means Chromecast "takes over" downloading the playlist, rather than my laptop pushing the video to it, so I just needed to use a URL with the LAN IP of my computer).

[0] https://github.com/mafintosh/peercast

[1] https://github.com/mafintosh/peerflix

> I really like the Chromecast model, browsing on a mobile device to select content is just a much better UX

I couldn't disagree more. Non-touchscreen remotes (RIP Harmony hub) are far superior as is browsing on the TV. I like the separation of concerns, others in the room can see what I'm doing on the screen, and I'm never scrambling to open an app to pause/rewind/etc.

My pet theory is that people who feel this way have only used low-end set-top boxes (or ones built into the TV which are low-end) and/or have used crappy remotes.

> people who feel this way have only used low-end set-top boxes

Yes I was thinking about this when I wrote it. All the set top boxes I've seen are crap with terrible UI latency and are slow to load new data. I'll admit that maybe it's possible to make it slightly less crap. But there's no way in hell typing out something on a remote with left-left-left-left-left-left-left-down click right-right-right-right-right-up click down-down-left click up-left-left-left-left click is remotely (ha) a good experience compared to a phone keyboard. And if I'm gonna have a device with a whole damn keyboard on it... it might as well be my phone.

I get that. And while I know "Apple" is a non-starter for some people I love my Apple TV for this reason. It's responsive, loads my plex library and lets me navigate it easily, and anytime I hit a text area I get a notification on my phone that I can tap and enter text from my phone. It's sort of the best of both worlds. Manually entering text via remote does suck, 100% agree.

Personally I believe that a touch screen mobile device is a degraded experience for any UX. This is just the cheapest way to manufacture a device so it's what has won out. But I hate the lack of tactile feedback and avoid using my phone for anything I can

Agreed. That's why the Harmony Hub + Remote was/is the best option on the market. No touch screen, just buttons, I can operate it "blind", I don't have to point it at anything (I've left it in my pocket while cooking and I can reach in and play/pause/navigate all without even taking it out of my pocket). The battery (a coin battery) lasts somewhere in the 6 months - 1 year range, I literally have no idea because it's so rare that I have to update it.

It's a shame that Harmony has left the remote business. Sofabaton is the closest to what my Harmony's can provide but they have a screen on the remote which I'd really rather do without. If my Harmony Hubs died today I'd probably get an X1 (though I actually like the design of the U2 way more) but I'm really hoping that I can ride the Harmony wave a little longer until a real spiritual successor comes out.

Sure. It works. You will have to pick one of two plugins for kodi to hook it into Jellyfin. See which one you like.

You can also try jellyfin-mpv-shim (headless target player, stellar codec coverage because mpv) and/or "casting" from Jellyfin Android or Web.

If your only media library is going to be Jellyfin, I'm not sure Kodi is worth it unless you have a preference for its UI/UX.