Hi Guys,

I've recently purchased two Philip's Pronto NG 3500's to control the automation within my house but I've been having IR problems that I'm hoping someone can steer me in the right direction regarding.

My biggest issues are with my controlling my Sky TV (Satellite) box and IR lights that I have around the house with IR receiving pads in their actual switches.

Sky Box - I have been told by my home automation company that the Pronto's IR trasmitters can be too powerful and overwhelm the Sky Box. However, from 5-10 metres away the box intermittently picks up signal controls from the Pronto and then when you stand a metre away, with the Pronto aimed right at the Sky Unit, it works fine! Ironically I can aim the Pronto against the rear wall or side wall of the room and often get similar performance than straight at it from a distance (this seems to contradict the "IR too strong comments from my automation guys"?).

My issue with the lights is very similar, aiming straight at the lights and they almost never work, however bounce the IR off another wall (preferably behind) and you get about a 50% hit rate)

Thanks and I welcome any ideas (I have scrolled through most of the forums and have also messed a little with the delay settings via NGEdit software with only little difference so far)

Cheers,
KB

KrisSBoyd
One of the things that I find that trips up IR and their receivers is halogen lighting, plasma TV's, and sunshine, among other IR noise generators. It's very possible the receivers are being "blinded" partially by one of these. Kind of like trying to hear some one on a phone in a noisy room. Gets hard to pick out the good from the bad. It's the same thing that makes learning codes on the Pronto's a pain sometimes. They can be very sensitive to any stray light. If the room is dark, and you give it an ON command, and it works, but gets touchy after the lights are on, then you're on the right track. Regular soft light bulbs usually are okay. It's the halogens that generate noise. It's why Xantech, Niles, Speakercraft and others have CFL or Plasma friendly versions of their IR receivers. Lately, since the newer RF6500 extender has come out, I use it all the time, now, to get around the problems of repeating IR.

If it works in the dark room, start turning off things or blocking stray light from the receivers until it works and you find the culprit.
Good luck!
Dan

Thanks DanKurts,

I will have a play around with the lighting levels and see if it makes any difference. Luckily I bought an RFX6500 with the remotes so may try that, however I was under the impression from reading the manual you can only operate RF or IR at one time via the remote and not a mix of two so this won't be the best solution in my home due to concrete midfloors (it would be great to be able to work RF and IR at once).

Will let you know how I go - cheers

KB
You can use both IR and RF on the remote at the same time, you just need to set each device accordingly. You can't do it on the same device (like a DVD player). You can get creative and split buttons up over two devices in the remote, for one actual device, if you have to. The newer rf6500 extender is so much better than direct IR, though, for ease of use and reliability, I use it all the time on installs.
Dan

DanKurts, just an update.

Been playing with the RF and it's working well. I have a concrete mid floor between a top and bottom floor so have had to run the RF aerial over approx 5m of coaxial but it works great with the aerial centered on the middle floor.

I'm still going to need to run IR through my wall IR receivers/tranmitters for using my Media Centre keyboards and am having some issues but all good fun (I think it's the challenge I like more than the outcome - lol). The light switches are also IR enabled and the Pronto's apparently are renowned for over powering them (I've been told new firmware for the Pronto can fix this but haven't found anything on RCentral so far), this will be the next focus point as I watched a Logitec remote here today switch my lights on and off with no worries, the Pronto struggles.

Anyway, thanks heaps for the help...I look forward to helping others when I become a power user.

KB