Connecting Helix LT to laptop wirelessly

[dreamtheater39]

I'd like to know if there's someway to connect my helix lt to my pc wirelessly? The usb cable is becoming a pain to deal with....I was wondering if there were any hardware solutions to extend usb wirelessly?

 

Cheers

[phil_m]

No, there’s not. Wireless USB is something people have been talking about forever, but I don’t think there’s anything doing it consistently well.

 

You could try a longer USB cable, although I probably wouldn’t go longer than 10 feet.

[kraftybob]

I wonder if latency would be an issue going wireless to a PC?

[dreamtheater39]

Alright that sucks. My current workaround....leave my surface tab close to the helix, screen mirror to my television....and use a wireless keyboard with touchpad.

[DunedinDragon]

4 hours ago, dreamtheater39 said:

Alright that sucks. My current workaround....leave my surface tab close to the helix, screen mirror to my television....and use a wireless keyboard with touchpad.

 

And THIS is why the world needs engineers....

 

[SaschaFranck]

They could (and IMO should) have added some wireless control options to the entire Helix family. Along with some (possibly feature reduced) editor for mobile platforms. Bluetooth would likely be sufficient for any control duties. And yes, it's been well established in 2015 already, hence I think it's a massive oversight. And one of the reasons I almost went with a GT-1000.

[Lone_Poor_Boy]

I've been using this 25' USB w/repeater flawlessly.  NOTE: though I have not had a single issue I still only use this for normal use and connect the normal cable for updates.  By the way, I got this because a normal 25' USB cable would not work.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BFRKYSU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[klangmaler]

ß

4 hours ago, SaschaFranck said:

They could (and IMO should) have added some wireless control options to the entire Helix family. Along with some (possibly feature reduced) editor for mobile platforms. Bluetooth would likely be sufficient for any control duties. And yes, it's been well established in 2015 already, hence I think it's a massive oversight. And one of the reasons I almost went with a GT-1000.

This has been discussed here over and over.

I'm still happy that Helix is such a professional gear that only has stable and reliant connections.

Otherwise I had sold it ;-)

[SaschaFranck]

3 minutes ago, klangmaler said:

ß

This has been discussed here over and over.

I'm still happy that Helix is such a professional gear that only has stable and reliant connections.

Otherwise I had sold it ;-)

 

A) Nobody wants to replace the stable connection options of the Helix.

B) Both Wifi and Bluetooth are used in a lot of professional products.

 

And fwiw, there's quite some reports about problematic USB ports (the little plastic thingy inside being broken). So much about a stable connection.

[dreamtheater39]

Couple thoughts -

 

GT1000 - though there's bluetooth connectivity - it's limited to just modifying patch settings/signal chains. There's no audio interface through bluetooth - am i right? So this is pointless!

 

The only issue with the USB cable is - my PC needs to be somewhere close to my helix (or a really long ugly cable running across my room - not a great idea!) and that's not close to where my desktop sits!

 

Here's my version 2 of this workaround setup -

 

- My 10" surface 3 connects to my Helix, sitting right above the helix!

- Turned on "Projecting to this PC" on my desktop which has a larger screen/keyboard mouse

- Use "Connect to wireless display" from my surface 3 to connect to my desktop

   - EDIT: Found Splashtop Personal remote desktop solution to be far more reliable and faster

- Added a 3.5mm to Bluetooth transmitter to my Helix headphones out jack (using a 1/4" to 3.5mm adaptor). Connected my Bose QC35 II over bluetooth

- My guitar connects using a line 6 g10

 

This way i can use my desktop to do patch edits on a larger screen wirelessly...i can also use my DAW on my desktop - with the audio routing to my wireless bluetooth headphones directly from the helix with almost no audio lag!

 

Not the cleanest setup - but works!

[SaschaFranck]

3 hours ago, dreamtheater39 said:

with the audio routing to my wireless bluetooth headphones directly from the helix with almost no audio lag!

 

Uhm. I haven't seen (or heard, or played through) a single BT device that would not introduce horrible latency for any kind of realtime tasks. Which headphones are you using?

[dreamtheater39]

50 minutes ago, SaschaFranck said:

.

 

Using the sony 1000 xm3. I guess you need to use a BT transmitter and headphones that support aptX - that's the codec which supports low latency! I initially tried the Bose headphones - but the xm3s definitely are a hair better both in latency and audio fidelity

 

https://www.aptx.com/product-listing?product_category=7&aptx_type=3

 

[SaschaFranck]

32 minutes ago, dreamtheater39 said:

 

Using the sony 1000 xm3. I guess you need to use a BT transmitter and headphones that support aptX - that's the codec which supports low latency! I initially tried the Bose headphones - but the xm3s definitely are a hair better both in latency and audio fidelity

 

https://www.aptx.com/product-listing?product_category=7&aptx_type=3

 

 

Hm, wikipedia still states something like 32ms of latency when using aptX via BT. Which is great for BT but still completely useless for realtime playing.

[dreamtheater39]

Yep - will never matched wired for sure....but good enough for some casual jam sessions/patch editing etc.

 

[jester700]

Regarding wireless audio, the AptX codec increases quality, but you need a specific variant - "AptX LL" for low latency, so be sure your transmitter and receiver are both AptX LL. And as mentioned above, it's still ~30ms latency, which is just enough to bother my ears a bit.

 

A possible cheapo option is using a guitar wireless transmitter/receiver as a wireless IEM. It's mono and clunky, but works pretty well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXTZNY5Ta-o

 

[elbe5050]

I would think that the aim would be to use HXEdit via WIFI not Bluetooth for editing/creating presets and so there wouldn't be any latency issues.

 

It shouldn't be too difficult for Line6 to mod the firmware to connect to a suitable USB wifi dongle and HxEdit driver to connect to Helix via wifi.

 

If using Helix as an audio interface then hard wired is the only sensible way.

I don't know of any quality audio interfaces that use wifi/bluetooth to send audio to a DAW.

 

[MayPRS]

One thing I would LOVE (and that's been already requested many times) is a Android/iOS HX Edit... even if a OTG cable was needed. On the road it will be great to edit things thru HX Edit using just the phone.

[DunedinDragon]

I think one of the biggest problems we have generally in the expectations of what HX Edit should do really comes down to the assumption that devices such as smart phones and tablets are the equivalent of full-fledged computers, and they aren't.  The first clue is the USB B connector on the Helix.  That connector is most commonly and traditionally used on printers and scanners and is designed to work in a master/slave fashion with the PC being the master and, in this case, the Helix being the slave.  This is one of the key reasons why you can't use HX Edit offline to manipulate presets and configurations.  All of those type of operations are performed directly within the Helix, so that's what HX Edit does.  It simply provides a nicer interface but relies totally on the Helix (Slave) unit to conduct those operations and report back on whether it was successful or is allowed.  Where HX Edit deviates from this model is it has the ability to provide certain support features to the Helix because it's coming from the master or smarter, more flexible device.  A tablet or phone is a smart device, but not comprehensively smarter like a computer that has access to the internet and can conduct remote execution of programs in conjunction with another computer on the internet (such as installation of firmware), tons of storage and retrieval options to hard drives or even cloud storage.  In other words things that really differentiate computers from smart devices.  What many people don't know is that in it's initial release of the Helix HX Edit only did things like store/restore presets and update the Helix firmware.  Things that only a computer that has the storage and intelligence can do.

 

I suspect a tablet/smart device version of HX Edit could be reasonably constructed from the ground up that only does the configuration options on the Helix, but not the storage, backup, and firmware installation but I wonder how useful that would be.  I know I wouldn't be interested in it.  The question is, does it buy Line 6 more users or more headaches because it doesn't do such things?

[MusicLaw]

For now over 10 years, I too have been using an equivalent high speed 480Mhz 25' USB Repeater cable with my assorted cable only devices. I bought it originally to work with my then brand new Fender Mustang V2 Amp's software, as my amps were in a different room from my then desktop PC. Since, I have on occasion used it for a variety of things including my Helix Floor and HX Stomp HX Edit and Firmware updates. All without any problems whatsoever. Certainly not a wireless solution, however it has extended the reach significantly when needed. YMMV.