Thinking about moving your A/V equipment rack, or maybe picking up a new cabinet to place your components inside?
If you’re worried about not being able to control your gear because you don’t have the latest RF (radio frequency) remote control, don’t fret. You can make your line-of-sight infrared (IR) remote work like an RF—you know, commanding components through cabinet doors, from other rooms and more—and there’s no magic involved.
All you need is a $55 piece of equipment that looks like a flying saucer. It’s the Next Generation Home Products’ Remote Control Extender, and it’ll give your remote more power and greater range of use.
The package consists of an RF receiver with built-in charger, a battery transmitter, two rechargeable batteries, and a single-eye emitter.
I don’t have my A/V gear in cabinets by my living room TV—they’re on a shelf out in the open—but my home’s living room and dining room set up were ideal for testing the Remote Control Extender’s application anyway. They are adjacent rooms, and because our plasma TV is on an OmniMount Power 55 motorized cantilever mount that can tilt, we tend to tilt it toward our dining room for viewing.
But we can’t really change the channels on the cable box, or turn it on/off while we’re in the dining room because there’s no line of sight to the cable box, which is on the far shelf and obstructed by the TV and TV wall from that angle.
That’s where the Remote Extender comes in handy. The hardest part, or most tedious, of setup is charging the batteries. Before you can get the product working, you have to dock the batteries into the receiver, and then plug in the receiver to charge them for a suggested 24 to 36 hours. After charging it for that long and then using the unit for a little while, I had to go charge some more—so I actually found a more consistent working level at closer to 48 hours.
Getting back to the rest of the setup, after the batteries were charged, I slipped one into an AA sleeve and popped it in my cable/TV IR remote. Then I plugged the receiver in near my equipment, and plugged the single-eye emitter into the receiver and attached it to my cable box via the adhesive bottom.
Simple enough. Now to test it out.
First I used the clicker in the living room itself, pointed toward the TV and cable box per usual. No problems there working as a regular remote, but I did want to keep in mind that the TV and cable box each make a click when I turn them on or off so I’d be able to hear them from another room.
Next I turned my back to the A/V to point the remote in the opposite direction. Worked again—so far, so good. I moved into the dining room, where I ordinarily would not be able to turn things on and off. With the Remote Extender, however, I heard the click as I pressed the cable on, and heard and saw the TV respond when I pressed that on. So the device passed my home’s application test.
I went a little further and moved into the kitchen, and sure enough it worked in there as well. Next Generation says you could use the long cable to run up to 30 meters without signal loss. Now that would be $55 (well, $54.95 MSRP) well spent.
I’ve been using this device for over 3 years. I use it to control 2 Directv DVR’s that are in my living room with the signal distributed throughout the house.
I have a 4200 sqaure foot home and it works perfectly from any room in the house.
I didn’t know how I lived without this techno wonder. I control all my inside gear from outside the house, in order to listen to music on my outdoor speakers. Being able to change channels and adjust volume with equipment housed 40ft away inside the house and inside a piece of furniture can all be accomplished with this simple device. The inventor deserves a Nobel.
This is a simple, inexpensive, yet functional product… I’m shocked, but impressed, EH is covering it! I was eying one of these for my own recent rack/cabinet build, but my Harmony ended up having a wide enough IR pattern that everything worked on the side-wall without problem. In my research I found that Next Generation sells 2-eye, 3-eye, and 6-eye extenders and that its 3.5mm IR output is also compatible with the 3.5mm IR inputs on most mid-high end AVRs. All-in-all, a much more robust and expandable solution than meets the eye.
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This works great. I hung a 50” flat screen in my bedroom and put the cablebox in the closet for a clean look. The EH is flawless.
Then I set another one up in the den with a 3-eye and put the transmitter battery in my Logitech remote. This controls a tv, home theater unit, cablebox and dvd player, all behind wood cabinet doors. The EH handles this with ease. No delay.
I agree with the above comment about the first time you charge the battery. 48 hours should be the suggested time. Depending on use it lasts up to a month before you have to switch it out.
I investigated many solutions. I tried this one first because of the price. It’s worth ever penny.