Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Anyone have a Harmony One remote?

Are you talking about the RF extender? If so, it is compatible with the Harmony 1000.

What is an RF Extender? Is it for using the remote in separate rooms?

I have the 890 and absolutely cannot stand the limited programming and the button layout. The 1000 looks a lot better in terms of the button layout. At my primary residence, I have MX900 from URC. You should seriously consider the URC line as well as the 1000.

The biggest "problem" with the URC products is that they seem to all have IR and RF. Since I don't need RF, I would be forced to pay a premium for functionality that I don't need. Their products seem pretty nice though if I did need RF.

There are things about RF that I really appreciate.

For example, I don't have to concentrate on aiming the remote. I can be reclining in my chair, with the remote resting in my lap at right angles (i.e., not pointing at the equipment) and I can press a button and get results (no small thing if you're surfing, or watching more than one football game at a time and you happen to be REALLY lazy ).

Also, If I'm going to the kitchen to get refreshments (totally out of sight of the equipment) and WWIII breaks out on my TV, as long as I have my trusty remote with me, I can adjust the volume to prevent glass breakage and angry neighbors.

Also (and I'll admit this one exposes my addiction ), I have a TV in my upstairs bedroom. I also have a second RF extender in the bedroom. I have my downstairs living room remote programmed with the capability to turn on the upstairs bedroom TV and cable box, and vice versa (the two RF extenders are set to different frequencies so the commands go only to the appropriate RF extender). If, for any reason, I'm moving between rooms, I can turn on the TV in the other room and set the correct channel BEFORE I get there. I never miss a play, a pitch, or a shot, never lose the plot or miss a news story.

To me, these things make RF worth having. YMMV.

FYI, my remotes are the URC MX850s.

Holy Crap, Jack. You got it BAD!

Jack -

Do you know if you can have two remotes talking to the same RF-extender? I have the MX-800 and we have one RF extender that has IR emitters running to a few different rooms in the house.

Since setting up the HT, the new point of contention between my wife and I is who gets to use the remote. Since everything works off of the IR emitters coming from the same RF box, we have to share one remote, which isn't always ideal. Having two remotes on the same box would be groovy.

Jason

I thought that RF and IR were not interchangeable. By that I mean, I thought that the equipment had to be specially designated as "RF"... You are telling me that everything can receive the RF signal even if it comes with just an IR remote?

I guess I should have found that out before I bought the Harmony One last night... Oh well, the Harmony One was already $75 over budget. For the URC one that I would have wanted, it would have been another $150 above that...

The way the URCs work is that the remotes can emit either IR or RF (or both) and this is set up in the PC software that comes with the remote. Very few components can actually receive RF as an input, so the RF is just a way to get signals from your distant remote to the RF-receiver box that sits near your equipment.

Once the RF signal is picked up by the RF-extender box, it translates the received RF signal into IR and sends it out either via a front "IR Blaster" that is a part of the extender box (i.e. to hit all of the equipment in your closet at once with whatever signal is received), or it sends the signals to one of six IR emitters that are attached to the RF-box and can be run to distant locations (i.e. a projector) to pipe the signal there as well. This keeps you from having to point the remote at the ceiling to hit the projector's IR input as the directly run IR emitter goes right to the projector's input and is attached via adhesive right over the sensor so that it gets the right signal no matter where you point the remote.

Aside from using for a projector, a lot of people use RF-capable remotes to operate equipment that sits inside an entertainment center that does not have transparent doors so that you don't have to have the cabinet doors open to run your equipment.

It's nifty stuff.

Jason

Nick - just saw your edit to include the fact that you already picked up a Harmony.

If you aren't in any of these situations like I described, you'll live just fine without RF. The Harmony One looks to be an awesome remote.

Jason