Yesterday, my IR blaster from CommandIR arrived. After going to see the movie “Watchmen”, I spent the evening setting up the new IR receiver and emitter. Step one: plug in and verify linux saw it. Step one was completed in less than 10 seconds. Step two: add the existence of the CommandIR to the system configuration. Step two took about an hour – 1 minute to install the upgrade IR control packages, and 59 minutes to edit the config files and prevent linux from loading the old, broken commandIR driver. If I had been smarter about following instructions, that would have gone faster.
Step three: try pressing a button on the comcast remote and see if CommandIR detects it. Step three took less than 5 minutes. Step four: have the CommandIR send remote control commands to the Comcast receiver. This was what I spent the rest of the night on. The things just wouldn’t send commands the comcast box could see. I then ran a loop test, recommended by the company. I put the IR emitter right up next to the IR receiver on the CommandIR. I turned on the watchdog program, that detects commands being sent to the receiver. I then sent commands to the receiver, but the receiver watchdog program reported nothing.
I suspect a bad emitter. I’ve contacted the company. I think that these emitters are just a stock IR LED with long wires attached to them, but I can’t verify that so I am hesitant to tinker.
More to come!
