If you have all your AV gear hidden away in another room or closet to keep your home theater looking neat and tidy, you know it’s pretty tough to control those devices with an IR remote control, because they require line of sight. The Vanco HDMI IR Control Kit looks like a pretty nifty solution for this problem. The kit comes with 2 HDMI adapter modules, an IR receiver and an IR transmitter. You add an HDMI adapter to both ends of the HDMI cable and then connect the IR receiver to the adapter on the TV end of the cable. The IR transmitter then plugs into the other HDMI adapter which is connected to your Blu-ray DVD player, cable box or other HDMI device in the other room. Now you can use your IR remote like normal and the hidden device will receive the commands. The Vanco HDMI IR Control Kit is available through Cyberguys for $49.99. That is a pricey way to control 1 device, but the convenience might be worth it to you.
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I have one of these systems at home: TV in living room, AV amp, blue ray, cable, apple tv all in the room next door. I had an expensive logitec RF remote, which I just didn’t get along with – it rarely worked first time or consistently. Saw these online, was surprised at the low cost (relative to the logitec remote) so gave it a go. Installed in all of a minute, use the original remotes and off it goes. Granted you can’t then create macros for speeding things up, but it just doesn’t go wrong. Absolutely love it.
@Richard I’m assuming you have to have the little IR receiver mounted somewhere though so it’s line of sight. Right?