On August 8, 2008 at 11:03, akirby said...
I would consider the IR repeater itself to be equivalent
to the RF extender that receives the RF signal and converts
it to IR. Let's compare the 890 pro RF with a Harmony
ONE IR and a repeater.
All things being equal...sure for sake of discussion.
Failure of the IR repeater - can't send remote commands.
However, the IR harmony remote will still work when pointed
at the equipment - i.e. you can still use the harmony
to control your activities.
However, like you mentioned in pervious post. You'd still have to be at the equipment and not able to see you tv.
Failure of the RF extender - can't send remote commands
AND you'll have to revert back to the OEM remotes or reprogram
the RF devices to use IR.
No not necessarily. I don't know of a RF only universal remote. Every UR that I've heard of that does RF will do IR. Not that this may be the case, but a UR programming savy individual normally does thier configuration in IR first for sake of testing codes and "sequences". Then would proceed to a RF set-up. That being the case, they would only have to download their original config to the UR and be right where you would with an IR only remote and a busted repeater.
I see this one as a wash.
Failure of the 890 Pro remote - must be replaced with
a 890 pro or compatible RF harmony. In the meantime the
OEM remotes won't work remotely.
Failure of the Harmony ONE - can be replaced with any
IR remote (any brand) and in the meantime the OEM remotes
can be used remotely.
True enough..
To ME - the benefits of IR outweigh the benefits of RF
especially concerning replacement or upgrades to the remote
itself over time. But that's just me. YMMV.
In the simplest (sp?) of set-ups I'll give you that. But it doesn't take much, (especially with a central rack) to want to leap to IR routing. Which you can't do with a repeater. I never mentioned it before, mainly because I'm unsure if such a animal is capable of it within Harmony's line up, and the OP was certain of a Harmony purchase. There are many examples I could provide to give RF the advantage, but I didn't want to stray from what the Harmony genre could offer.
