I'm having trouble with God's Flashlight (the Sun).

My back deck faces directly West. We have a fantastic view of the California central valley from our deck, so that's where we put the hot tub, right under the kitchen window.

I've wired some outdoor speakers under the awning above the hot tub, and the Rio Receiver is connected to those speaker wires.

I do not have room on the kitchen windowsill to mount the Receiver, and we get some very severe weather up here on this hilltop, so I don't have a way of mounting the Receiver directly within view of the hot tub without major building work.

My current work-around is to use a small infrared repeater (a Radio Shack "remote control extender", essentially the same product as the terk/X10 "powermid") sitting on the kitchen windowsill. I can shine the remote control through the kitchen window at the IR repeater, and it will control the Rio Receiver which is mounted safely in the living room. Works great, actually, I have no trouble skipping tracks and controlling the volume from inside the hot tub. (I pick the playlist before getting in the tub, so that's all I need to do.)

Except when the sun shines into the kitchen window, which is pretty much any time between midday and sunset. Then the radiation from the sun gives the IR repeater fits, and it sends random IR commands in a steady stream.

The random commands wouldn't be so much of an issue, except that the Rio Receiver stutters about once every 30-60 seconds because of these random commands.

So if I ever want to listen to the Rio Receiver during the day, I have to unplug the IR repeater to prevent the stuttering. And forget even using the remote control when the sun shines on the repeater.

So... Barring some kind of a software fix for the Receiver (and I'm not sure if something like this is even fixable in software), is there a way I can filter the IR repeater? Is it even possible to filter the problem sunlight frequencies without also filtering the remote control's commands?

I've heard mention of infrared filter material that's available at camera shops. We don't have a local camera shop, so if this kind of thing were to work, I'd need to know an online source for the material. But how can that material even work if the sunlight is causing problems in the same frequency range as the real infrared commands?

Sounds like you'd be better off with an RF controller. If you aleady have X10 and an IR interface it's pretty simple to relay the RF commands to IR.

Does the displayserver provide an easy way to control the Rio remotely? Even an Activehome should be able to launch a url. Then you'd bypass the IR completely.

RF sounds interesting, but how is this accomplished with the Rio remote control? It does not emit RF signals.

And also there must be no computer involved in any of the system. I do not want to leave my PC on all the time. The HSX does the serving for the Receiver.

I was suggesting that you use an X10 palmpad RF remote. Take a look on X10's website if you're unfamiliar.

If you're not already into X10, you'll need to invest more in this than it's probably worth, especially if you want a standalone controller that doesn't use a pc.

Never mind.

Maybe one of these instead?http://www.smarthome.com/8220a.html. Never tried it myself.

That RF extender looks like it would work for my purposes, however I'd like to see if there's a filter that would work first. That way I wouldn't have a bulky box glued to the front of my remote.

So does anyone know about this IR filter material? Can it work for what I'm talking about and if so, where can I get some online?

Get some IR filter material in front of the sensor; actually, if you ask David nicely he can probably send you a 2"x2" square - we overbought slightly on the stuff which is used on the mk1 and have lots of it left!

Hugo

Thanks!

/me heads off to ask David...

Hi Tony,
I read about your problems there with sunlight -
and your dropping of your remote into the spa pool recently.

There is a learning remote control by the One For All people (at www.oneforall.com) called the Home Producer 8, which comes with a RF to IR 'base station' which may well be the answer to your problems.

Effectively, you teach the remote your IR commands from whatever IR devices you have e.g. Rio Receiver, then when you press buttons on the remote it sends out a RF signal to the RF/IR repeater box, which then turns the RF button signal into the IR signal you just selected.

This should let you control the Rio Receiver [or anything else it has learned] from 50+ feet away, and you could orient the Rio Receiver away from the window (heck it could even be in the house in the stereo rack where it belongs!) so gods flashlight won't affect the unit while the RF signal will get through to the repeater. And of course, being RF, you can probably seal the remote up in a nice waterproof bag (like maybe a Cellphone water proofing bag) and still use it - providing you can see the buttons that is.

The unit costs about $70 - visit this web site for the details on the various models, the model I'm about is the Home Producer 8, I know the remotes expensive by comparion, but nothings too much when you can use your toys from the comfort of the Spa pool now is it?

I'm sure you can find a local (to you) outfit that stocks it, or One For All will sell you one direct I guess.

Let me know if it works for you.

I got the initial specs on this from Remote Central

I am very familiar with the OneForAll remotes, in fact I swear by them in most cases.

I use a Radio Shack 15-1994 for my home theater, which is essentially a re-badged OneForAll Cinema 7. I've even gone so far as to do the amazing JP1 hack which allows me to completely reprogram the unit via a PC parallel port. So I'm intimately familiar with these products.

I don't yet own one of the RF versions, though, and hadn't considered that as an option until now. But you could be right, and I'll think seriously about going RF with it. Thanks.

I might have no choice, as it seems the IR filter material that David sent me did not solve the problem. The player still hitches and stutters because it's still getting random signals from the IR repeater when the repeater has the sun shining directly on it through the filter material. I even tried doubling up the filter material so the sun was shining through two layers of it, and it still wasn't enough.

I wonder if the problem is that the player just needs to be programmed to tolerate random IR commands better?

(PS: My Rio Receiver is not facing the window, it is already in the living room where it belongs, it's the IR repeater that's facing the window.)