Re: Internal RF Adapter for Almost Any Remote

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

I've not bought one but I can tell you a bit about how it works.

It's 418MHz so it's only useful with its target or other RF2IR devices,
nearly all of which use 418MHz in N. America.

It senses the carrier bursts as RF.

It will not work in some devices - mostly those with LCD screens. The
screens tend to put out RF noise that swamps this little thingy.

Single chip RF transceivers have been incredibly small for some time. Search
for Chipcon and look at the datasheets.

X-10 uses 310MHz RF so it is of no use for X-10.

The 8-in-1 remote sends only modulated IR when in IR mode. It sends RF and
_UNMODULATED_ IR when in RF mode. Unmodulated IR has very short range and
will not be detected properly by receivers designed for modulated IR. Most
consumer IR receivers are designed for modulated IR with a carrier in the
32-40kHz range.

Your camera is seeing the unmodulated IR because its close to the wavelength
of visible light.

"Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>http://www.smarthome.com/8045.html
>
>Has anyone bought one of these?  I found it while (vainly) searching for a
>credit-card sized learning remote that Bill just asked about in another
>thread.  Any ideas on how it works?  Where does it pickup the originating
>IR?  From being part of the PS circuit?  At first I thought it might solve
>Bill K's problem, but apparently not.  Still, it could be useful for some
>situations.  It's a pretty clever idea, to stick a transmitter and an N
>battery in a AAA/AA sized sleeve.  These RF transmitter chips must be
>getting incomprehensibly tiny!
>
>This may sound like a stupid question, but does anyone know if the X-10
>8-in-1 learning remote transmits RF as well as IR for each type of command
>(VCR, SAT, TV, etc) or RF & IR X-10 commands only?  I can see the IR LED
>flashing when it executes X-10 via my camera's viewfinder, so I assume it's
>sending both RF and IR transmission simultaneously.