Remote Control Windows from Smartphone with Sinatra and AutoHotkey

A memo of when I implemented remote control of a Windows PC from a smartphone using sinatra and autohotkey.

What you can do: Accessing a URL in a browser like Chrome on your smartphone controls your Windows PC (specific example: press the space key once)

What to do: Set up a web server with sinatra. (Probably works with node.js too, but I like sinatra.) Write an autohotkey script. (If you can write, Java, C, or VBS are fine too.)

Implementation

I’ll skip the installation of ruby, gems, and sinatra.

app.rb

require 'sinatra'
require "open3"

get '/' do
  'hello'
end

# http://192.168.3.19:4567/youtube
get "/youtube" do
  Open3.popen3(%(cmd /c start "" "C:/pg/sinatra/_tmp/enterSpace.ahk")) do |i, o, e, w| ; end
  "/youtube"
end

C:/pg/sinatra/_tmp/enterSpace.ahk

send, {space}

When done, start the server.

PS C:\pg\sinatra> ruby app.rb -o 0.0.0.0

Check the local IP with ipconfig, and access a URL like 192.168.3.19:4567/youtube from your smartphone.

Was the space key pressed on Windows?

If you apply this, you might be able to put a keyboard on your smartphone and make any operation basically possible.