BAFX Products (Infrared) IR Remote Control Extender or IR Repeater Kit - Control 1 to 8 Devices (Expandable to 12!)

Every so often a product comes along that does what it says and does it well. This is a prime example of that. It's a good product. About the product itself, first, the IR receiver and emitters are tiny. It's hard to imagine even from the pictures but when placed on equipment that's in view they are hardly noticeable. The cords attaching them are delicate too - in similarity to the size of the thinnest you'd find on Apple ear buds. They're also very flexible and very easy to fit into and around the device you are sticking it to. The adhesive that's used seems to be sensitive to the surface it's being stuck to. On a Sony BlueRay player with a smooth surface, it touched and was stuck - there was no moving it. On an Xfinity 4k cable box, which has a slightly textured surface, it just dropped right off. Couple wraps of masking tape completely around the cable box held the emitter in place - masking tape didn't stick to the cable box either so I suspect it's the plastic's fault, not the adhesive. Beauty of hiding things in a cabinet is that you no longer need to care how they look and the couple wraps of blue painter's tape doesn't matter. The IR receiver is very sensitive and responsive. No need to aim the remote at the receiver any more. The LED on it changes color when receiving signal which is handy feedback. Nice thing about that though is the LEDs are very dim - you notice it when it changes color but otherwise it's innocuous. The unit itself has the ability to run off either a wall wart power block or USB. Most AV devices these days have at least one USB port, the Xfinity cable box for instance has one but it's unused, and that USB port worked fine to supply power which saves one outlet. It's a nice option to have. A couple other reviewers have commented on seeing latency. There is no noticeable latency with this extender. What I did find in setting this up is that one has to be very careful that a given device receives the IR signal from only one emitter. Some IR controlled devices will pause for a short period of time and ignore input if they get a garbled IR signal. Also, just because something is opaque to visible light, doesn't mean it's not transparent to IR. If you are getting inconsistent behavior or hesitation in responding to signals try first isolating the component in question from any chance of stray IR - put it in a cardboard box and see if the behavior changes. There are only two things about the product I'd say are not as I would have desired - the power cord on the wall adapter is short - not an actual issue if using the USB connection but I think that in most installs it's probably going to negatively impact the install. And second, the cord on the IR receiver is also short. That's easy to fix with an audio extension cable. And maybe best about the product is that it's trivially simple to setup - took longer to get the twist ties off the wires than it did to plug it all together and have it working. Everything is well marked and obvious - you could install this, go a couple years, buy a new device, and have it connected up and working without needing to find the original paperwork.

Background: I was happily using a "DBIRX" IR Repeater system (purchased from an on-line "Electronics" seller) when my kitten decided to "dine" on the wires of a couple of IR emitters. I searched for replacement emitter cables, but couldn't find any that would work on this system (it operates on 5VDC - the ones I found are for "12VDC systems"). I then did research on "similar configuration" IR Repeater systems (they operate on ** 12 VDC **). Because the "BAFX" wired system rated highest, I bought one along with an extra "BAFX" IR receiver. To The Point: I installed this system and...it WORKS GREAT! The "stickum" on the IR receiver and emitters is VERY "ADHESIVE" and the package comes with a couple EXTRA "stickum" pads for the receiver and emitters if needed. For the Emitter heads, make sure you mount them in the "right places" as they are QUITE DIFFICULT to remove (if you're "careful", you can re-attach a removed emitter ONCE). The IR RECEIVER is VERY SENSITIVE - heed the instructions regarding WHERE to put the receiver "in relation to" what you're controlling. The "viewing angle" of the receiver appears to be QUITE LARGE - between 30 and 45 degrees, so you do have some "latitude" on placement in your Viewing Area. Using "multiple" receivers: The Instructions ARE NOT KIDDING by stating keeping a TWENTY FOOT SEPARATION between multiple receivers in "the same" area! As stated above, they are VERY SENSITIVE and if they're closer than 20 feet THEY WILL "interact", rendering proper operation virtually impossible! Emitter mounting: some devices will need "tape blocking" (using OPAQUE "black" tape) around the emitter placement area to, again, prevent "interaction" between the System IR Receiver and the "device's" IR receiver. Again, this "interaction" can prevent proper IR control of the device, especially if the repeater receiver and the "device" receiver are closer than 3-4 feet from each other. Experiment with receiver/emitter placement/tape "blocking" for best "Total System" operation. "Extending" IR receivers and emitters: if the provided cord lengths on the receivers and emitters are "too short" for your setup, use readily-available 1/8" (3.5mm) M-F MONO (for the emitters) and STEREO (for the receiver) extension cables for the purpose. They WILL NOT "degrade" the signals! One "nit": the 12VDC power adapter's 3' "power cord" is WAY TOO SHORT to reach the Main Unit from an AC outlet! chances are you WILL need a "2-prong" AC extension cord to connect the adapter into AC power! Conclusion: Some have reported "reliability issues" with this system. I can't comment on this because I "just started" using it as of this posting, listing the "quirks, etc." I've discovered. I'll update this review after I've had the system for awhile. As of now, I ** DO INDEED RECOMMEND ** this system (the "nit" notwithstanding :) ).

SEE EDIT BELOW.... Trouble.... I love this product when it works but it likes to freeze up a few times a week. I would give 5 Stars if it wasn't freezing up on me regularly. Set up was simple enough, double sided tape ain't that strong but it did the job. Running the wires to multiple units worked well, luckily they case has a strong tint so the wires everywhere can't be seen. ON reflection I guess with patience the wires could be run with more care. from the back under the units to hide the bulk of the wiring. The IR receiver module installed next to the TV is small enough to not attract attention and I love the fact you get feed back from the light on the module to know your remote command was received. Problems.... my issue has been that randomly during my nightly TV time the unit seems to get frozen. For about 3 minutes no signals are transmitted to my satellite receiver, amp or media player. Strange thing is that the IR Receiver shows it has received a signal. Quick fix is to power down via "unplug and plug back in" the unit and it works right away. This typically happens only once a night and it would happen for light 3 TV nights in a row and then not show up again for another week. Since the unit is powered up all the time, my guess is that it might be happening daily but since I only watch TV between 8-11pm I may not catch it all the time. EDIT : May 2, 2015 So I got a replacement unit from BAFX installed it 2 months ago and it works wonderfully! I'm so happy now that it's working. I normally would take off 1 star for my troubles but the service at BAFX was great and they resolved my problems quickly. The IR Repeater responds instantly with no delay.

Looks like a good design. However I can't get the receiver to respond (green to red) from more than ten feet. They claim 10 meters (30 feet). I tried contacting the manufacturer but they haven't responded. I can only assume the product is defective. My apologies to BAFX and Amazon. I missed the picture on page two of the instructions which shows the proper orientation of the receiver. When the receiver is oriented properly, the range is easily within the 10 meter spec. BAFX did respond to my email but I neglected to adjust my filters so their email sits on the Cox server. All is well. Although I haven't installed the repeater on my equipment, I expect it will work as advertised. Mea Culpa. Since I screwed up my original review I thought I'd add my successes. This product has a problem with Plasma TV's so I placed the BAFX receiver below the TV and about an inch behind the plane of the TV. The BAFX receiver works well in that position (green to red). As for my Dish Receiver, I placed the BAFX emitter about 1/2 inch in front of the Dish IR sensors. I also shielded the area so that the Dish sensors would receive no signal from the Dish remote control. The BAFX repeater is now properly controlling the Dish receiver, A Sony receiver/amplifier, a Sony Blu-Ray player, and a Sony CD player jukebox. They all respond properly to the Dish remote or a Harmony 650 programmable remote. Each of the pieces of equipment responds properly to its own dedicated remote. All through the BAFX repeater. The only thing not controlled through the BAFX repeater is the TV. Its IR sensor is in view from anywhere in the room.

I have 15 devices set up on this and it worked pretty good. The challenge was still IR.... No fault of this product just the technology of IR itself. You know if the remote is not pointing exactly right at the target or you are too far across the room or you don't have the right angle, etc, etc. One big plus of this repeater is the remote receiver port gives you feedback to let you know when it receives a signal by flashing red but even better than that, the light is brighter the stronger the IR signal is and dimmer the weaker it is (off angle, etc.) so you can know how to aim and point plus figure your distance out. Some devices require a stronger signal than others. My Cable box for example the Cisco RNG150 requires full signal to operate and exact alignment on the cable box with the BAFX IR transmitter. I also really like the 3 inputs I was able to add additional IR Receivers and put them in different locations to try to eliminate the having to point directly at the the IR receiver or devices, But at the end of the day it is still IR. I matched this with the Logitech Harmony Ultimate Hub & Remote..... WOW! The best thing is that I just ran a 3.5mm to 2.5mm stereo cable from the Harmony Hub to the BAFX repeater and presto it was done. Now the Harmony remote (also our iPhones & iPads) FLAWLESSLY controlled every device every time regardless if we were pointing correctly or even if we were in the room or not. I couldn't be more happy with the system. Plus with the Harmony Hub the Lutron lighting that only worked sometimes before, if we got the angle right.... Now the lights come up to a pre-set brightness when we hit pause and slowly dim to off when we press play (as programed). The best part about it is it does it every single time without fail. Another point of frustration was with our LED TV backlighting. It is set to change colors to view movies and back to bright white when the show is paused, different colors for sports, 3D movies, etc. Now it works flawlessly with a consistent and flawless with this combo Another advantage to having the 3 inputs on this repeater is I could hard wire one from the RF/IR Harmony Hub (the 3.5mm to 2.5mm plug) and still have 1 (or 2 if desired) of my IR receivers installed incase we needed to use one of the original IR remotes for some reason (or we lost the Harmony remote, all of our phones and tablets. LOL) The biggest pain prior to the Harmony was the cable box the dreaded RNG150 it worked but often took several presses to get a good enough signal from the remote. the IR receiver on the 150 box is very hard to line up correctly. Now that It is hardwired from the Harmony RF receiver to the BAFX it has not missed a beat. Again the key is having a constant full signal without the remote being slightly off angle. These are the devices I'm controlling: 1. Mitsubishi 92" TV 2. Yamaha Receiver 3. Sony Blu Ray Player 4. Sony CD Jukebox 5. Apple Mac Mini HTPC 6. Apple TV3 7. Darbee Darblet 8. Cisco RNG150 cable box 9. Lutron IR light switches (3 of them) 10. Color LED's for back lighting 11. Mitsubishi VCR 12. Wii Gaming console 13. Guitarman Butt Kicker (2) 14. Lutron IR plug for accent lighting 15. IR controlled cooling fans in the media cabinet. I have everything hidden in a cabinet so all that is exposed is the TV. I couldn't be happier with this set up. I just wish I knew about this years ago. I would highly recommend it.

My A/V equipment is in a cabinet behind a large, pull-down projector screen. When the screen was down and the doors to the cabinet were slightly ajar, I could sometimes get the remotes to work if I held them down near the ground and aimed them precisely at the crack in the doors. Obviously not the most reliable and convenient setup. Opening the doors until they were just touching the back of the screen helped a bit, but I still had to put the remotes almost on the floor to get the signal to get around a large coffee table that was in the way. With this product, I am now able to far more lazily and randomly point the remotes at the small receiver puck, and reliably do whatever I'm trying to get the remote to do at the time. With the screen down, the receiver puck is clearly exposed, as it sits outside my A/V cabinet just below the closed cabinet doors, about 10" off the ground. It's not exactly invisible, but it's certainly unobtrusive because it's so small. Even with the coffee table blocking much of the accessibility to the puck, the puck still gets a reliable signal from the remote without me having to go through any gymnastics, yoga or other gyrations. I like the fact that the puck blinks red to confirm when it receives a signal, as well as the fact that I can now leave the cabinet doors closed at all time to minimize dust. The only challenge I ran into was with getting the transmitter correctly lined up with the front panel IR receiver on my Blu-Ray player. The front has a totally blacked out face, so it was impossible to just look at it and tell where the IR receiver was. Fortunately, the Blu-Ray's owner manual showed exactly where the IR receiver is located, so just a minute or two of trial and error to get the best placement of the stick-on transmitter was all that was necessary to get the component responding to the remote. I just had to be careful to be sure I was pointing the remote at the puck, with no chance of the Blu-Ray player picking up the signal from the remote itself, before finally peeling off the paper from the transmitter and affixing it to the correct spot on the player. The long leads on the cables also means that you don't have to have your equipment closely spaced, and can even be in any location at all that is within reach of the wires (e.g. amp and player in a left cabinet, DVR and cable box in a right cabinet). If you can accurately place the stick-on transmitters over your component's IR receiver, then place the tiny receiver puck anywhere that can be reached by your remote's signal, you should have no issues controlling all of your otherwise hidden equipment. My home theater is now much more of a joy to use because this product eliminated every problem I was having with getting the cabinet-mounted equipment to receive a good signal from the remotes.

Love it! It's truly a plug and play product! What I do like the green LED light on the receiver is dimly lit which is perfect. It lets me know the controller is getting power. Whenever I press a button on my IR remote it blinks bright red to let me know it received the signal ok. There are also status lights on the controller box to make troubleshooting a breeze. The only goof on my part when I first plugged it all in nothing happened. Took me a few minutes to realize even though it was getting power the receiver and transmitter weren't plugged in all the way. Soon as I pushed the plugs in everything worked perfectly. No problems with the receiver. It was able to pick up the signal no matter how I point my remotes. It picked up 100% of the time. It worked great with my Yamaha 7.2 channel receiver and Sony 3D 4K up-scaling BluRay player. Took me a few minutes to find the darn IR receiver on the devices. Soon as I able to locate them I put the transmitter directly on top of them. The controller box is very compact and well constructed. It even sports simple mounting tabs to make it look professionally installed on the wall. Overall very happy with it. Only thing left to find out how long it will hold up. It's made with high quality parts so it should last for years. Well worth the $$$ spent.

After having been frustrated for years by the inexpensive wireless pyramid and pod-type IR repeaters that have poor sensitivity and just plain cranky days, I bought one of these. It worked so well that I immediately bought a second one. It was a happy surprise to see the main unit housed in a nicely made metal enclosure, flanged for screw mounting if needed. Even if it's not screwed down, the little extra mass of the metal box goes a long way toward preventing multiple cables from pulling it off the shelf. All of the IR emitter cables use very soft and compliant insulation (almost as flexible as silicone, but they're almost certainly not) allowing them to be routed neatly against the individual AV components. The sensitivity seems very good - the remote range for my troublesome Blu-Ray player went from about 8 feet (with a narrow aperture) to well over 22 feet, and it was previously my most problematic control - other remotes have even longer range. The IR receiver module has a constant but very discreet dim green LED that flickers to red or yellow when receiving, but this part has never been obtrusive even in a darkened room, and I appreciate the visual feedback when the signal is received. The main unit itself (which I have in a separate room) has a red power LED and blue received-signal LED that can be overly bright if exposed in a darkened home theater environment, but a little black tape with a couple of pinholes fixes that. I was unable to buy extra IR receiver modules from this particular vendor, but for another $30 I just bought a second unit and got the extra receiver I needed, and 8 extra emitters to boot plus the spare main unit and power supply. Performance has been flawless so far, and I consider this to be a higher quality unit than I would have expected at this price. Based on a sample of two units I would highly recommend this product.