Ceton recommended IR receiver for Echo

[mldenison]

I'm still looking for anyone that has gotten an IR receiver connected to the USB port on the Echo working 100% successfully.

I've tried three: an HP unit, a Hauppage unit and a Chinese eBay unit. I'd prefer not to buy any others unless it'll work. All three work fine on my HTPC. Each one has been plugged into each of my two Echos and none of them work correctly, if at all.

Ceton has posted no information about this.

Each one, when plugged into my HTPC, cause the USB drivers to be installed. Which tells me that each one has a specific driver that gets installed.

Obviously, the Echo cannot install a driver for an IR receiver. I would guess that any driver would have to be embedded in the Echo's firmware.

Ceton needs to sell, or recommend, a specific unit that will work with the Echo.

[adam1991]

A mirror works well.

[erkotz]

Any official WMC IR receiver should work (most likely just the HP out of the 3 you listed). What do you experience when they are connected to the Echo?

[mini__me]

My HP one used to work on old firmware, then stopped working fully, I think the only buttons that work at the moment are the directional arrows and the enter key. Would have to check though. If it did work I'd have deployed my echo's all round the house by now, rather than having to wait for a maintenance window with SWMBO to pull TV's off walls to run the USB power and CAT6 down from the attic

[erkotz]

Are you using an official WMC remote with the actual logo on the green button? Your problem sounds like an issue we saw with a third-party remote which did not use the standard WMC protocol (even though it was sold as a WMC remote)

[mini__me]

I have tested with an official remote but not recently, been using a harmony to test which works the same IR receiver through a PC...will dig out the official remote tomorrow and try it.

[mldenison]

Any official WMC IR receiver should work (most likely just the HP out of the 3 you listed). What do you experience when they are connected to the Echo?

I'll hook up the HP one tomorrow when the TV is freed up. I'll let you know what happens using the Ceton remote.

[nick]

Just curious, what's wrong with the internal IR receiver?

[mldenison]

Just curious, what's wrong with the internal IR receiver?

Nothing. Except on our kitchen counter, there's not enough room in front of the 19" TV for the Echo but there's enough room under the TV for a 1" receiver, but not the Echo. She refuses to let me duct tape the Echo to the top of the TV.

[mini__me]

Just curious, what's wrong with the internal IR receiver?

Nothing, it's just I have little HTPCs in the attic of my house with HDMI and the HP IR receiver dropped down the wall cavity a poking out the bottom of the TV.

If I can reuse the IR receiver it save pulling the TV off the wall, and running cables down for USB power and Ethernet which will involve a scheduled maintenance window with the boss

[mini__me]

I tried my official Xbox remote and Linksys remote and both were the same as the harmony when using the HP receiver only directional keys worked in the menu (not to bring up mini guide which I thought was odd) and enter key worked. I couldn't find another that worked.

As I've said, previously all keys and remotes worked with this echo and receiver but it would crash, now there is no crashing but it's not usable

[nick]

Just curious, what's wrong with the internal IR receiver?

Nothing. Except on our kitchen counter, there's not enough room in front of the 19" TV for the Echo but there's enough room under the TV for a 1" receiver, but not the Echo. She refuses to let me duct tape the Echo to the top of the TV.

For what it's worth, I used black zip ties through the bottom vents on my wall-mounted LCD to attach the echo and it blends right in.

Just curious, what's wrong with the internal IR receiver?

Nothing, it's just I have little HTPCs in the attic of my house with HDMI and the HP IR receiver dropped down the wall cavity a poking out the bottom of the TV.

If I can reuse the IR receiver it save pulling the TV off the wall, and running cables down for USB power and Ethernet which will involve a scheduled maintenance window with the boss

That's a very interesting/unique setup you have

[mini__me]

Yeah, I use DVBLogics software to provide virtual tuners on the little boxes that is fed from the main HTPC in the garage.

RecordedTV HD provides access to recorded content from the boxes in all locations.

The major niggle is not being able to watch program's as the are being recorded, or to pick up a program where I left it in another room, hence getting the Echo's to replace them. Xbox used too much power and was too loud for the rooms and extending the IR on that looked hacky. Linksys although great didn't provide H264 playback in a WTV wrapper and therefore UK HD TV didn't work

[mini__me]

I got a maintenance window and ran the cables down, little echo is hidden behind the TVs now and still accepts the remote commands

Currently taped to the TV, but I'll get myself some Velcro patches for a more permanent solution at some point

[foxwood]

Currently taped to the TV, but I'll get myself some Velcro patches for a more permanent solution at some point

SuperGlue is much more permanent than Velcro!

[mini__me]

Would make any future RMA return costs a little expensive

[mldenison]

I finally got around to trying the HP brand IR receiver with the Echo.

Prior to hooking it up several days earlier, I changed the device in my Logitech Harmony from the Microsoft WMC computer to a LinkSys DMA-2100. I believe the remote works better now as far as key presses being more quickly recognized.

After plugging in the receiver (and covering the front of the Echo in case the Echo IR receiver doesn't automatically disconnect), I powered up the Echo and the TV.

Initially, the receiver did nothing, but after about a minute, the Echo rebooted and the receiver started working.

Most everything worked on the remote.

However, pressing the numbers on the remote for changing channels was frustrating. It took a much longer key press to display a number. Sometimes the number would not appear and the tuner would jump to the wrong channel. Sometimes a double number would show.

Using the same remote on the Echo without the IR receiver, the numbers work fine.