Remote control echo?

prowla

Something weird is happening...

I bought a WD TV media player, to allow us to watch movies which are on a wireless NAS drive.

It works fine in my living room and in my son's bedroom, but in my bedroom each button press on the remote control is repeated several times; it's as if the button presses are echoing or something.

I unplugged a Sky box I have there, covered up my alarm clock and iPad, turned off the lights, it's dark outside and the curtains are shut, but it still happens!

(I have the app on my iPhone and that works it fine, so it's just the IR remote control.)

It's got me flummoxed.

Any ideas?

John_Gray

Before people knew how to sort out these things, there was a phenomenon called "button bounce", where multiple presses could be generated. Have you tried a replacement controller?

AndyPix

Are there loads of mirrors in the bedroom ?

The signal could be bouncing between them a few times

prowla

John_Gray wrote: »

Before people knew how to sort out these things, there was a phenomenon called "button bounce", where multiple presses could be generated. Have you tried a replacement controller?

Thanks - it works perfectly in two other rooms, so I don't think it's the remote handset.

AndyPix wrote: »

Are there loads of mirrors in the bedroom ?

The signal could be bouncing between them a few times

Hmmm, I thought of that - there are two mirrors on one wall; I did try shielding the unit from their direct line of sight, but I might try covering them.

stator

IR signals do reflect off surfaces in the same way as light does. If your batteries are strong you can point your remote at the wrong wall and it should still work.
So if you replace your batteries with worn out ones from another appliance, it will be less likely to bounce off walls.

prowla

Well, I found out what it was...

I tried powering the media player using a trailing socket from another room in which it ran OK, but that didn't fix it.

I tried covering up electrical items, including the light, in case they were doing something in sympathy, but no.

I tried cloning the media player's remote to a programmable one, and added a 2 sec delay to every keypress, but that didn't resolve it either.

So, I put a HDMI switch between the media player and the TV, and it works fine!

I was plugging the WD TV unit into a "HD Ready" TV's HDMI socket, and something weird was going on, possibly in the software trying to auto-switch to 720p or the electricals.