I recently upgraded my TV to 52" flat screen LCD/LED and had a custom cabinet made to hide all my stuff. The cabinet came out great with all my components, players, Xbox, Medic Center PC, cable box underneath and behind solid doors. Problem is when you shut the doors the remotes (aside for the TV) don't work. I tired another brand that was designed to repeat from one room to another but it did not do a good job inside a divided cabinet as it only repeated from the main unit. My problem is the cabinet is divided down the middles with cable access between the sides in the back. Being a big fan of the Harmony remotes I went ahead and ordered their extender. It was a bit more expensive than others but went ahead based on it being Logitech.
Once I received it and opened up it I was surprised at how small and sleek each piece is. Since it came with one blaster and two mini blasters it game me a lot of options. I have one mini blaster on one side of the cabinet plugged into the main blaster and second mini blaster on the other side. The blaster and mini blasters do a great job of radiating the signal throughout the cabinet. The main blaster unit sits on top of my BD player (inside the cabinet) on one side for all connection. I positioned the mini blasters one on each side to cover the remaining components.
The (visible) receiver unit is also smaller than expected and sits at the base of my (black) Sony TV without being seen at all.
There where no setups to go through and the biggest challenge was how to run the cables, which by the way are plenty long enough for any application I can imagine.
Way to go Logitech ! You built a winner !
I highly recommend this unit (BTW: I NEVER write reviews) Logitech Harmony IR Extender System (Black)
i had lots of problems with this.
initially i wanted something to enhance the reception of my harmony one. since its IR powered, sometimes not all of my appliances receive the commands sent from the controller. i wanted this so that all i need to do is to point the control towards the IR receiver.
its not that simple. this adaptor is a BLASTER system. the core item is a BLASTER. you also connect 2 more mini BLASTERS.
the set up must be such that the IR signal from your controller hits the IR receiver, which sends the signal to the extender core unit, which BLASTS another IR signal , then tells the mini blasters to BLAST another set of IR signals, so that the concerned appliance will respond to the IR signal command.
A your set up must be such that every one of these BLASTERS are well isolated, far apart from each other.
B each appliance must only be exposed to ONE blaster. and NOT able to receive the signal directly from the harmony remote.
C the harmony remote MUST NOT be exposed to any of the blaster signals.
D the receiver must be positioned such that it can only receive signals from the REMOTE ONLY. and not subject to IR from other blasters.
in other words, everything must be isolated from everything else.
failing which, signals will cancel out each other. and your appliances will not respond.
i learnt all these from trial and error. hours of them.
and the system is power. WAY TOO POWERFUL. blasters emit such a powerful IR blast its bound to interfere in some way unless each appliance is in a compartment of some chest of drawers with thick walls or something.
seeing that the blasters are too strong, i wanted to buy third party emitters instead, but the jack size is not 3.5mm. so NO GO.
i tried wrapping the blasters with thick tape, foil etc. but without much success, plus its gonna look real stupid. i managed to get some improvement / some shielding effect with thick rubber.
so if you dont think you can achieve all the above criteria, i suggest dont buy this, buy another 3rd party IR extender system, or get the RF harmony remote. otherwise, you will find that the responsiveness would become much worse that if you use the original controller for your tv or sound system. eg you have to press a key 3 times to see a reaction, or try different angles, point this way and that, just to get your volume up one notch on your tv or something. forget about multiple commands like turn on tv and bluray player, then adjust tv input etc.
the only good thing about it is that it is 100% guaranteed to work with the Ps3 adaptor.
its a well made product, but its a way too POWERFUL blaster system. get it only if for some reason, you need high powered IR blasts all around your setup.
if you need IR extension, i would recommend 3rd party systems with emitters attached directly to the IR receiver of your appliance, not blasters. dont worry about emitters looking ugly, cos even the mini blasters are big enough for someone far to notice a weird protrusion easily.
many people buy this because its LOGITECH. but you can possibly buy something of lower price but works much more efficient than this. YES, 3rd party systems work too, cos ITS STILL IR. IT DOESNT HAVE TO BE LOGITECH. - Remote Control Extender - Remote Extender - Universal Remote - Harmony One'
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