Something New Personal Product Reviews...

I don't know that anyone intentionally reads my blog versus just stumbling across it when they are searching the web.  In either case I have been meaning for a while to post simple articles about products or services that I purchase.  These posts won't typically be SharePoint related (could be), but instead will be about general around the house stuff.
My reasoning for wanting to do this is that I have purchased a lot of stuff for my house and family over the years and typically during that process I often wish I had an honest review of the product I was interested in.  Sometimes I found them in places like NewEgg, Lowes and Amazon and sometimes I did not.

So I figure I will add my drop of experience/feedback/wisdom to the giant pool of the internet so if someone happens to be thinking about the same product/service they have one more piece of information to evaluate with.

Ok enough with the background on with the first write ups....

Hot Link Pro - Remote Control Extender by Microsmith

I bought this so that we can achieve TV wall hanging nirvana.  (aka TV on the wall with no visible cords, input devices, etc.. showing at all despite the TV being hooked to multiple input devices.)

One critical part of the aforementioned goal was hiding all those devices in a closet, but when you do that the remote controls don't work.  So that is where the Hot Link Pro comes in...

It has an eye that catches all the remote control signals from your various remotes.  It then sends the signal through a single, thin and flexible ribbon of cords.  Each cord in that ribbon (6) can then be positioned in front of a devices.

The basic unit (what I have) supports up to 6 devices and that was plenty enough for us.

Opinion

I like this product and it works well although my TV (Samsung LN40B640) puts out a bunch of IR traffic that causes the receiving eye to be "jammed" for a few seconds.  Then they eye/TV get in synch (our out?) and everything works well.

I remotely control two devices currently with this unit:
     - Tivo HD
     - Sony DVD/VHS player

Overall I am very happy with this product and the only downside is that you have to take some time getting the eye in the right spot (with some TVs) so that it does not get false positive IR traffic/noise from the TV itself.

I looked at lots of options (wireless radio remotes, universal remotes, etc..) and settled on this one for it's simplicity, cost and effectiveness and it has worked out well.