IR to BT Converters (yes there are 4 of them): Comparisons/User Reviews - Page 4

I was fortunate enough to get the PS3Toothfairy first round out and it works like a thing of beauty. I purchased the bare bone kit, assembled and functioning with my Harmony One in less than 30 minutes. Great product.

amazing, thanks for the more complete breakdown, it's nice to see it all in one place.

Being a right impatient bastard (hell, once I've jumped the gun let's go whole hog! ah, mixed metaphors, like butterflied in mustard!) I picked up at EB Games a $10 old skool PS2 remote =with= the IR repeater. I found for $20 at the Source (formerly Ratshack) a PS1/2>USB controller adapter. Plugged in the IR repeater to the adapter, and (as per the original post I read eons ago at Remote central) it works.

As per above, it lacks the main PS button, of course, so shutdown is a manual process (not such a big deal in my setup as I've got my Monster 5100 doing a timed shutdown anyway). Power on also is hardly a big deal, as I'm not so far away that it's an issue. What's more disconcerting is that with the PS2 remote nav is flaky as hell. In the XMB one press of the left/right button jumps sometimes one, sometimes two or three columns. This no doubt is the result of the details I read regarding BT functionality, namely, that it's expecting (like MIDI!) an on followed by an off signal, rather than continuous send with normal IR. Going to procrastinate today from real work and get it running on the Nevo, will advise to those desperate for updates from lil' ol' me...

Additionaly, the mapping of the buttons isn't straightforward either, with play/pause not working as expected. The start button does the trick, as do the four "shape" buttons (is there a l337 expression for them?). In terms of mapping to a normal remote I'm a bit at a loss, would be happy (to not barf in this thread) if someone could point to a good place that would outline in one place the corresponding play/pause/stop buttons (ie., "start=play/pause", "X=enter", etc.)

Man, it's stupid that Sony's not on the ball with this... There's money to be made!

ps.


Found this: http://ir2bt.com/forum/viewtopic.php...843b5bf7b58866

I wasn't getting the need for the first sequence, but see it's for during gameplay...

I -get- that the colour buttons and PS don't have a PS2 equivalent, but I don't get why it's not a simple matter of me having the hex codes for these controls and to use the PS2>IR dongle. There's obviously more to it then that or else the Nyko and Shmartz units would have incorporated.

I take it, then, that the IR blasters use unique IR codes that are then translated to BT signals, rather than "raw" PS2 sends. Correct?

http://www.ir2bt.com/buttonmap1.htm

Yeah, I'm quoting myself now. It's come to that.

well, been toiling with trying to make the IR adapter do the trick (silly intuition telling me it should...)

(x-posting to the Nevo kids! http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...=978419&page=3)

Short version: I can of course "teach" my remote all the codes I need... CCF import from other sources didn't work quite as well as I would have liked, but the "this ain't gonna work" factor is set out by the fact that XMB nav is too quick (as above), skipping over columns when nav'ing. Unfortunately I can't reduce the IR transmission time as far as I know to a point where it'd be fixed.

Anyone notice this with their PS2>PS3 solution (ie., PS3IRX1)?

The firmware update has been posted on Mike's site, and people have successfully updated their units. Some people with Hex programmable remotes have got the new built in macro to work, but I'm not sure if anyone that has a Harmony has got it to work yet. I do not have the PS3IR-Pro, so I can't really verify anything.


What remote to you have? I'm not familiar with the H800.
Edit/ Just looked back through your old posts and saw that you have the Harmony 880. There are no color PS icons for the 880. Only for the Harmony One and the 1000. You can add text icons to the 880 if you would prefer them to writing out the command. Here is a link to the icons I used.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...&postcount=763

...just ordered the IR4PS3 from Benoit... There's a great comprehensive guide that he sends out, and given the fact that there are built in macros for some of the more challenging sequences for certain remotes, the fact that it's built directly upon a Sony BT remote board, and, well, that it's from a nice guy in Quebec made it an easy choice. There's no option for AA or USB power, but it's about half the price of the other unit, and it's ready to ship if you should make the plunge.

Should be getting it asap. Beer, I recommend adding his device to your (fine) summary above as it may help others, and I second the fact that the summary should be in the first post of this thread.

To verify, I need to purchase the official Sony BT Remote for the PS3 no matter which of these I buy (PS3IR-Pro, IR2BT or PS3Toothfairy)?

Thanks in advance

No you do not need to purchase the PS3 remote if you buy the PS3IR-Pro, or the IR2BT. Depending on which PS3Toothfairy you purchase you may or may not have to buy one (you need the Sony remote for the bare model, but you do not need it for the standard or the elite).

Sharkshark, I did not say anything about the IR4PS3 because I do not know much about it. There still isn't a website, and all I have seen online about it is the article that was written months ago, and a few posts by users that say it works well. When you get yours feel free to post any information you can, and hopefully some pictures as well.

It appears that Dogdoctor has included my summary on the first page now also.

Dogdoctor, I'm not sure where the triangle text icon originally came from. I just copied and pasted it from another forum into the Logitech software and it worked fine.

I've read this whole thread, and only seen maybe two mentions for the ir4ps3. I personally have the ir4ps3 so I might be bias, but it works great. The power off embedded macro was the selling point for me. I hear a lot of other people having trouble programming the macro in their remotes, and on the schmartstuff.com forums their are nothing but complaints regarding the firmware update.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...&postcount=181

More love for it - got it within 24 hours of payment, set it up in 30 seconds and it immediately outperformed my PS2 IR>USB adapter hack.

Merci Bien Benoit!!!

ps. I actually -offered- to do Ben a site, and he turned me down, he wants to keep it fairly quiet so that he isn't bombarded. In other words, if you're in the know, and lord knows y'all in this thread are, it'd be best to do so asap while he's still having a go at it.

pps. I do like that the other equivalent unit uses battery or USB power, but this one is not only significantly cheaper, but the inclusion of the power macro seems like a boon to those using Harmony or other similar remotes. As per my thread above, my Nevo Q50 seems to handle the power sequence without a need to use the built-in macro, so I can actually have a speedier power-off if I'd like.

I have to agree. The IR4PS3 works great and setup was a breeze. I already had a PS3 remote that I wasn't using, so I figured why not put it to use.

I had the Nyko and it worked fine for me, but really wanted the power option.

Well worth it to me.

Ben is very quick to respond to questions.

Very highly recommended.

Congrats on 1K posts.

In contrast I got a PS3IR-PRO today and upgraded firmware without a hitch. The device driver was slow to load on my PC, but it worked great and downloaded perfectly.

subscribing.

super nerdy question - anybody else try to play games with their remote?

You have to of course change the controller number to 1 usually, but, yeah... kinda works...

Ah, rediscovering IR... So hilarious we've got to hack this thing just to make it work with dino-tech like a lightbulb that we can't see...

I couldn't be happier with my PS3IR-PRO now that Logitech was able to give me the PowerOff button that activates the discreet Power Off macro in the new firmware. Everything works like a charm and the PS3 powers down all the time. I was quite frustrated early on when it seemed like I had a 50/50 chance of the PowerOff macro programmed into my Logitech 880 of working as expected.

Hopefully support for hardwired IR repeater/flashers is coming soon. Being able to update the firmware via computer after just one firmware update has been huge for me changing me from disgruntled to very pleased.

Trent

A late reply to an old post, but....

I am glad that someone small has taken a patent out on it before one of the big guys jump in on the bandwagon and take over the whole project, do all of you guys out of business.

Sure MMuecke has made some silly PR mistakes, but let's get over it and buy from whoever we want to buy from.

so any new news if the IR2BT will be available? I'm torn between that and the PS3IR-PRO.

The IR2BT website says they have ordered more parts and expect to have more units ready by the end of June. I would expect them to start taking pre-orders around that time.

The PS3 Toothfairy website just says that they are sold out and hope to have more soon. No mention of any timeframe.

The Schmartz PS3IR-Pro is in stock and supposedly shipping within a day or two of order placement.

I also think you can get the IR4PS3....

so, which one you gonna get?

...I really can't speak to the USB solutions, but my experiments with basically cloning the PS2 remote proved to be pretty shoddy...

I continue to be very happy with my IR4PS3. As it tracks ON/OFF states you have to be a bit wary of, say, turning on the unit using the controller and then expecting functionality, but since the command is discrete it's easy to program my Nevo to send the ON command when switching to the device with no trouble.

And, yeah, driving games with the Nevo are kinda fun...

Add me to the group that has an IR2BT, an so far it works great. Setup is a snap and so far it works flawlessly. The only thing I have to do manually is flip the switch on the back of the PS3. I can do everything else with my Harmony 670.

Sharkshark, is there any chance you can post some pics and maybe the instruction manual for hte IR4PS3? There is very little info available about it on the web.

It's all here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ghlight=ir4ps3

I have found another remote for the ps3, well sort of. I use the gyration media center remote (mainly because harmony can't do the wii type of mouse control for my HTPC)..... Anyway, I stuck the usb port into the ps3 just for fun, and it sort of worked....

Just for those who do not know. Gyration uses wii-like technology (without the need of a sensor bar) for your computer. With it I can do everything as a mouse. In addition, the numbers double as letters (like in texting someone) so I can even use it to type in small things like usernames or search items. It also doubles as a standard universal remote (no macros but every IR button is programmable). It uses blue-tooth to communicate with the computer, and IR to communicate with everything else.

on the ps3, I was able to scroll through the menus, even fastforward and rewind blue-rays. The problem is that the gyration doesn't seem to allow you to program blue-tooth signals. In other words, I can't get the ps3 button, triangle, or any other buttons. I just lucked out that the default directional signals the remote used were the same that the ps3 used.

The beauty of the gyration remote is that it is BOTH IR and blue-tooth.... so in essence, it basically needs a software code written for it, and wallah you have ps3 remote with all the functions of the regular remote. I don't think something like that exists, but I do not think it would be that hard to either program the remote, or to program the ps3 to respond to the pre-programmed blue-tooth buttons.

Anyone out there have any advice?