Getting Started with my OUYA

So now I have my OUYA Dev kit all unboxed and hooked up to the TV and everything. The screens and welcome video look nice, but to load anything on it I needed to get it hooked up to the computer and detected as a valid Android device.

I like to do my development in Eclipse on Windows. I know, I'm crazy. I like my Mac and all, but when I write software (except for iOS of course) I've always been in a Microsoft environment. Maybe it's because my first introduction to programming was BASIC in DOS. Maybe? But from BASIC to Turbo Pascal to C to Java, I've always used a DOS or Windows PC. I'm now on Windows 7 64-bit and of course the OUYA wasn't detected as a valid device when I plugged it in.

The Windows section of the setup information for OUYA devs is a little sparse right now (ok, it's empty) but the forums did provide me with a solution, which I will now share. Hopefully they'll provide some kind of driver with the OUYA when it is released to the general public in a few months, but if not this trick will probably still work.

First, find the Android device driver file provided by Google in your Android SDK. Mine was

C:\Users\User Name\AppData\Local\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\android_winusb.inf

and yours is probably somewhere similar. Open that file up in Nodepad and add these two lines in the [Google.NTx86] section:


%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_0955&PID_7100&MI_01
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_0955&PID_7100&REV_0232&MI_01


Then you go to your Device Manager and find the unknown device. It is probably calling itself "Cardhu" or something. I don't know what that's about, but just open that up and click the "Update Driver" button. Choose "Browse my computer for driver software" and then "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer". On the next screen, click on the "Have Disk" button and then browse for the .INF file you edited earlier. Then when asked to pick a model, select "Android ADB Interface". You'll probably get warnings about the driver not being signed. Tell the Windows nanny to take a hike and install the driver anyway.

That's what worked for me.

Unboxing my OUYA Dev Kit

I received my OUYA development kit yesterday! They really shipped them to us when they said they would. These early dev models are special - they have clear casing and say "OUYA DEVS" on them. Here's what was in the box.

Here's a close-up of the back of the console. Power is on the top. Below it is a mini-USB for connecting it to your PC and an Ethernet port. The bottom two ports are the HDMI output and a USB input. I used that one to connect a mouse to navigate the settings screens before I paired the controllers. I actually had trouble getting the controllers paired with the console, and here's why. To put the controller in pairing mode, you hold in the power button for 5 seconds. To shut down the controller, you hold in the button for 7 seconds. I guess I'm not good at counting in my head, so when I would keep the button down just a little too long it would shut down in the middle of pairing. I would like to see a different button used to pair the devices.

Here's a picture of one of the controllers beside the console. They say that the controller design is not final yet, so if you get one in the spring they might look a little different.

OUYA Console and Controller

They even supplied Duracell batteries for the controllers! That was nice, since I don't really have enough batteries in my house right now. And when I was writing this, my wireless mouse needed new batteries.

You put one battery in each side of the controller. I thought that the panels came off a little too easily, and they've already warned us that shaking the controller too hard can pop the batteries out. Hope they address those issues before the final production.

Here's a close-up of a controller. The buttons are labeled O, U, Y, and A. Both sticks are buttons if you push them straight down as well. There's two triggers and two bumpers along the top. My initial impression is that the triggers might be a little hard for me to use but I like the bumper locations.

OUYA Controller