We’ve been using the Boxe Smart Portable Projector quite a bit and we would like to share with you some of the things we’ve learned during our time with it. This isn’t a comprehensive guide but a quick list of some tips and tricks to hopefully improve your experience with Boxe and maybe answer a few questions you may have about it.
Navigating With Mouse Mode
Unfortunately, not all of the apps available on Aptoide TV aren’t quite optimized yet and can be a pain to navigate. Some of them like Netflix require you to use mouse mode to navigate through them. On Boxe mouse mode is pretty easy to toggle on from the launch pad and is pretty easy to use if a little slow. To scroll down the page when in mouse mode just long-press the center button in the directional pad. The icon on the screen for the mouse will change to a circle with two arrows, one up and one down, you can then just tap up or down on the directional pad to quickly scroll through the page. When you have scrolled enough just hit the back button to get the normal mouse cursor back.
What about scrolling sideways you may be wondering. When the mouse is in the page scrolling mode you can also scroll sideways, but it requires a little bit of work to get it right. When you want to scroll sideways you need to make sure the mouse icon is placed over the menu that will scroll side to side. Once you’ve positioned the mouse, make sure the mouse is in the page scrolling mode, and instead of tapping up and down, tap the left or right buttons on the directional pad. This should make the desired menu scroll sideways. Remember though, the trick is to make sure the mouse icon is in page scrolling mode AND on the menu that will slide sideways.
If you have a USB mouse on hand, you can use that for even easier navigation through these less optimized programs. You can even keep Boxe in normal mode so you can use the controller as normal for some quick screen navigation at times and use the mouse for the few times you need it. You can even plug in a USB keyboard for easy typing. IF you own a wireless mouse and keyboard combo that uses one USB dongle, you just turned Boxe into a portable PC projector!
Is it off or just in power saver mode?
When turning off Boxe, you have to long-press the power button on the back of the projector. If you try to turn it off with just the controller, it will instead put the projector into a kind of sleep mode so it will be able to quickly start back up for you. It’s good for those times when you knew you will be getting back to the movie or show after a quick break or after some chores. But leaving it in sleep mode like this will drain the battery eventually, so be sure to fully turn it off when you’re done by long-pressing the power button on the back.
Having difficulties with AirPlay and Screencasting?
For Screencasting and AirPlay to work, you need to make sure that Boxe and your other device are on the same wifi network. If they are on the same network and not working still, a troubleshooting solution we found that works with phones and other devices with data is to use your phone as a hotspot and have Boxe connect to the hotspot. They should then see each other and work as normal. Unfortunately, there are some apps that just will not work with screencasting, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO GO, and Disney+. For these, we recommend that you find their equivalent on the Aptoide TV app store. Unfortunately not all of them are on the Aptoide TV app store yet, but hopefully they will be in the near future.
Have you found some tips and workarounds to make using Boxe an even better experience? Let us know on our Forums and Discord so everyone else can also enjoy your insights.
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