Regardless of what I try I cannot get the IR Receiver buttons to work correctly.

I have the OEM remote and the voice recognition works perfectly.

I have purchased two different mce remotes for use of the ir receiver only. Each of those remotes work perfectly fine. But when I try to use the Amulet remote, I have no response from either.

I was able to program the basic (TV off,volume up and down) buttons for my TV and a/v receiver, so I know the Amulet Remote is working for IR. I am also able to program the red or green programmable menu by learning each button from my other remotes to the Amulet. In this way, I can get the Amulet remote to use ir receiver buttons but it has a lot of delay and seems to switch back and forth between the windows media center mapping and the red or green mapping. Not nearly as responsive as each of the other remotes.

Should the IR buttons on the Amulet work without any work if I have the right ir receiver? The other two remotes are just plug and play. The Amulet is not and from internet searching it seems I am not the only one with these frustrations. I am usually fairly sophisticated about computer troubleshooting but I can't figure this one out. I've read the Amulet user guide and it doesn't talk about this. I've also done a fair amount of internet searching.

Please provide some guidance on how the ir receiver buttons should work or at least which ir receiver model we should be using for plug and play functionality. Having button functionality is a pretty essential component of using this device.

Thanks

I replied to the other IR thread you posted in before I noticed your message above. That answer covers most of what you had asked (see www.amuletdevices.com/index.php/Forum/?c...id=5&view=topic#1417) which was, in essence, Amulet only works with eHome-compatible IR receivers.

I'm actually quite impressed that Amulet was able to at least partially learn the IR codes from your other MCE QP remotes; it's really only intended to learn RC5 codes for common consumer equipment.

You mentioned Amulet seemed to be arbitrarily switching from your red/green keymaps back to Media Centre mode again. The most likely cause of this is pressing the green Start button on the remote; this acts as a "back to Media Centre keymap" shortcut, in addition to sending the normal MCE Start Button code.

If you can find a good source of eHome IR receivers, it would be great if you could post on the forum here to let other users know. They used to be in plentiful supply but have been rather hard to get hold of since Microsoft decided to stop concentrating on Media Centre.

eddy, thank you for the quick response.

It sounds like it won't be possible to get my amulet remote to work with either of the IR receivers I have bought this far.

I've tried searching for "eHome" ir receivers but that appears to just be the name of the Microsoft driver. According to some people on the internet, they are getting a list of "eHome transceiver" in Windows Device Manager for the SIIG Windows Vista MCE dongle I am using (the second ir receiver I bought). I am not, though that remote works perfectly fine.

Since it appears that there is pretty limited number of ir receivers the amulet remote actually works with, can you provide a list of at least a few of the ir receivers you've tested that work with this? I just want to be one and be done. It's frustrating to not have a major piece of functionality not work for a product based on lack of compatibility.

Unfortunately, when the Amulet was originally designed, THE standard IR receiver was Microsoft's own receiver which they bundled with their remote. At that time, most of our intended sales were to people replacing their existing remote with an Amulet, so Amulet was designed to use the same codes as the Microsoft unit. (Amulet also works fine to control the X-Box 360 via remote, by the way, since the same codes are used there).

We did second-source an IR receiver from SMK which is compatible, and were supplying those for a while to customers who had no IR receiver of their own; unfortunately, we are no longer able to obtain these.

We do hope to find another supplier since these are becoming increasingly difficult to track down. eHome was Microsoft's term for their living room infrastructure, rather than a specific product name; it's also the name that appears in Device Manager for USB IR receivers compatible with Microsoft's RC6 protocol, as used by Amulet.

I'm sending you a separate mail with some thoughts that might help you get up and running quickly. In the meantime, I'll post a public update if and when we are able to offer IR receivers again, or can direct people to a third party supplier.

Edy