IR Repeater System - Hidden IR Control System for Home Theater

I purchased a flat screen tv for our bedroom and wanted to eliminate all the cables and the satellite box... which the newer version of the HD Directv receiver has relatively bright blue LEDs... that can be bothersome when you are done watching tv and want to sleep. My wife and I did not want a cabinet in the bedroom for the tv and satellite receiver. With relative ease I was able to put the receiver in a bedroom closet and run the cabling thru the wall... including the IR repeater wires... all behind the flat screen tv. A small LED receiver, 1/2 inch by 1 inch, is barely visible and the only thing in the bedroom is the flat screen, thin (1.2") Samsung LED wall mounted... looks great, as all you see now is the tv no distraction of the cables running out from behind the tv, etc.. You know the pictutre. The satelliet receive has never been more responsive and there are no more annoyning LED lights form the satellite receiver lighting up the bedroom. Great product for a decent price... The instructions for setup seemed vague but I just hooked it up as diagrammed and everything worked immediately! There were also options for various more complex installation that would be useful for the primary entertainment center in your home where you have more devices to extend the IR remtoe control signal too. This unit comes with four (4) LED emmitters to control four (4) devices but has expansion ports for up to six (6) devices total...

I think the other reviewers have covered it well - you might have some issues with the different kinds of 3.5mm cables if you want to extend it (mine is extended 15ft with no issues) because some 3.5mm cables have the extra rings for simultaneous MIC and Stereo connections. Also don't hot plug the thing - it acts oddly until you power cycle it.So after doing all the things I'm not supposed to do, it's working like a champ still and couldn't be happier.Yes it has an annoying light on BOTH ends to let you know it's receiving a signal. This is a fantastic troubleshooting feature, but dang the light is SO bright. I fixed this by covering the LED on the receiver and I didn't cover the LED on the control box as it's hidden in a cabinet anyways.

Took a chance on this because of the price. Installed it and so far it's been working great. It comes with a power supply, reapeater main unit, 1 IR receiver, 2 double headed IR emitters for a total of 4 IR emitters. The only possible issue I noticed so far is with the IR receiver, but this depends on the person. When the IR receiver receives commands from your remote it flashes a blue LED light. For some this is a great feature because you can instantly tell if it's actually receiving or not. For others they will be annoyed with the light, but that can be easily solved with a piece of black electrical tape.

I have a system where all the components are located in a cabinet on the other side of a half wall because I didn't want everything stacked up in plain view. My problem is that all my surround speaker wires run to this cabinet and I watch tv through an Xbox One so changing everything around and keeping surround sound wouldn't work. If you've ever tried to watch tv through an Xbox you will know that using the handheld controller is a pain, not only because you have to use gaming buttons to control everything but because the controller will enter sleep mode after some time of nonuse. So if you just want to change channels quick to see a sports score or something you have to go through a process of waking up the controller and then navigating a few menus. There is also Xbox Smart Glass to use your smart phone as a remote but that's just as troublesome.My choice was to either spend $400 on an RF remote which would control everything or figure out an IR system with my current setup, this little guy did the trick at 1/10 of the cost. I wanted to get away from watching tv through the Xbox and watch it on a direct connection from the cable box so I needed to control the cable box separately. I put the IR receiver out by my tv, ran the cord under the carpet to my cabinet, installed the brainbox inside the cabinet, and ran IR eyes to each component. Once the install was done it's a matter of plugging-in to power and boom, I was up and running.As for the IR device itself the receiver is fairly unobtrusive, it's about 1"x1"1.5" and has a long cord on it, 10 feet I believe. There is a small blue LED indicator on the face which blinks when you send a command though it has nothing to do with actual IR function, if you didn't want to see the light you could paint or tape over it. It comes with some double-sided tape attached to the back for mounting but I wanted mine attached using the top so I had to add tape there. The receiver is strong, even without a direct line of sight it still picked up signals from the remotes, I'm thinking its cone of reception is pretty wide.The brainbox is small too, smaller than a deck of cards and has flanges if you wanted to mount it to something, I laid mine in the cabinet behind the cable box. The power cord does have a transformer but it's fairly small, I was able to fit it on the surge controller without crowding the existing plugs from other devices. There is 1 input for IR receiver and 6 outputs for IR transmitter though you can use multi-eye cords from each of those giving you what, a total of 18 devices you could control. Do you even have 18 devices? I don't. The brain sends the signal uber-fast, the moment I press a remote button the controlled device is doing what it should be doing, there is no lag that I notice.And finally there are two double-eye emitter cords included to control up to four devices, I only needed to control three so the other eye is rolled-up and twisty-tied out of the way. The little eyes each have double-sided transparent tape on them, remove the backing, stick to the IR window on the device you're controlling and that's it. These cords are also 10 feet long so I had no trouble reaching all my devices in the cabinet.In my setup I needed a longer cord to get from the tv to the cabinet so I also purchased a 30' extender cord to connect the IR receiver to the brainbox, any AV cord will do as long as the tip is 3.5mm. You don't need a special cord, just find the cheapest audio headphone cord and go with it, and though I'm not sure how long a cord you could use I've seen other reviews here where people have used cords at over 100 feet long. My 30' cord works fine, I don't notice any delays or interference with the signal.As a final comment I tried using the "spaceship" RF remote extender in the past (I have a review of that too) but they didn't last, and the cost of additional RF transmitters was more than this IR device cost. These seem to be very similar devices across manufacturer and provider, I figure if this device dies in the future I could swap it out fairly quickly and easily. Overall I'm very happy with it and for less than $30 it was a no-brainer for me.

Installation's pretty simple and cords are all pretty long to make it easy to get everything to reach where it needs to reach.I had troubles with performance right away, which wasn't very good at all. Thought about sending it back, but I contacted the company ... and after describing the problem and the device I was controlling (a digital, HD cable box from Motorola), they immediately sent me a newer, dual receiver.Now everything works flawlessly. The problem I was having was apparently specific to fitting the HD system I have.Bottom line: You might want to contact the company to see if this specific IR repeater system works with the devices you want to control, especially if they're newer devices. (Note. The dual receiver can be found separately here on Amazon: Cmple - Dual Frequency IR Receiver SA HDTV DVR and DirectTV H21).

Works well with most equipment.

love it

Great product

The repeater worked well for all but one of my components. An HD digital cable portal to be specific - it was only receiving every other button press it seemed. After further investigation and reading reviews for this very product I found that the IR receiver was the component causing all the grief.The new receiver can be found here: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B004WLATTU/ref=cm_cr_ryp_prd_ttl_sol_2After purchasing this new receiver, the product worked perfectly for all of my components!

Works great..