My equipment does not have a direct line of sight with my Harmony 720 - what to do?

In my bedroom, I use a mirror. I have heard of people being able to use normal framed (with glass) pictures to bounce the signal around. Trial and error will tell you pretty quick what you can use.

yes...have you researched any of this yourself? Have you heard of google?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...er&btnG=Search

If you know about the extender concept, why even ask...I contributed my experience ...

The Harmony 890 is designed for this purpose.

It can use either Radio Frequency or Infra Red signals for each device it controls. It also comes with an Extender box that can be put in your cabinet out of site and control your devices in your cabinet.

If you can set your hidden devices to use RF signals, you can probably do without the extender and use the Harmony 880 instead, which costs less than the 890.

I looked at the Harmony remotes on the www.logitech.com WEB site, and could not find the 720. Are you sure that is the model you have?

I've yet to hear from anyone happy with the X10 Powermids that come up at the top of that google search. Personally I would recommend the Hotlink Pro IR Extender

http://hot-link.com/

Basically the same as the 750

I use X10 extenders already many years and never noticed any lag.

Yes, I use them and no there's no lag at all. I can reliably control components in my basement from the 2nd floor.

I don't use the included IR emitter because it wasn't necessary since the receiver module is in front of the components being controlled.

I've used the radioshack extenders which look to be the same as the powermids. They changed the design in the past couple of years to make them a little smaller, and more rounded, but I'm guessing it's the same thing under the hood.

Pick up a set, and get a multiple emiter cord to plug in to the receiver on the extender. Then you can bury it in your equipment rack, and run the wires up to the IR imputs on your devices. I've done this in a few different setup, and it works fine.

-Jeff

The PowerMids and other extenders discussed here are IR Blasters. The unit that sits in front of your equipment blasts an IR signal to the equipment. For simple set-ups this works fine. For more advanced systems it does not so IR emitters are used which are small bulbs with thin wires that are placed over each individual component.

You would want to use IR emitters in the following circunstances:
1. You have multiple units with the same or conflicting IR controls. Two of the same cable boxes, a Sony DVD player and a Sony VCR that may share like codes, etc.
2. Your equipment is tucked away snugly in a cabinet where a blaster signal cannot be placed to easily reach all units. Again... not a problem when you have a cable box, dvd player in tv. But, in my home my equipment rack houses a cable box, direct tv receiver, av receiver, dvd player with hd upconversion, dvd/vcr, dvd player with Divx playback capabilty and more. They stack up pretty quickly.

Remember the nice thing about the radio shack pieces is that if they don't work for you you can easily return them

The "little deal" (the IR emitter) is just an extension of the receiver module. The transmitter module (the one that you point your remote at) is what converts the IR signal to RF. The RF signal is then sent to the receiver module that's located near the components where the RF signal is converted back to IR.

Again, depending on your set-up (as remoteshoppe explained) you may or may not need IR emitters.

Anyone got any experience with the Jensen remote extenders? I see some of them on a popular auction site that are tempting based on the prices.