HP IR Receiver Options

maddog: agreed. URC makes some nice products. I've gone a different route and have JP1 remotes which are also not well covered.

ragedog: you can't run the HP receiver out where it's visible? my experience is that it is very sensitive and i don't have to aim right at it, more so than my other IR devices

the remote isn't the problem. it controls everything in every application just fine. the HP dongle receive signal just fine until I try to bank it off the wall. in a traditional set up, the HP dongle is awesome. my setup is unique.

Right. I actually use that exact HP receiver myself. What I meant was, if you don't have line of sight to the HP dongle, then a RF remote (like the one I linked you to) comes in very handy. When it comes to RF, Harmony is way overpriced. I, like you, don't have line of sight to my reciever, because it is in a coat closet with the rest of my A/V gear. The RF remote works up to 100' away (basically throughout most of the house, which is nice when listening to music while doing chores). I have had that exact URC RFS200 setup for 5 years without problems, despite it being repeatedly dropped by family members. It has even come apart multiple times, and once put back together, keeps working fine. I can't say enough good things about it. Just look at the reviews on Amazon.

I wasn't questioning the Harmony's ability to control your HTPC and other components. I was merely stating that IR without RF doesn't always work for every setup. It almost never works in setups that I do for clients, because they usually want their AV gear tucked out of sight, which means either using an IR kit, or an RF remote.

There is a fairly new product out, that I just used for the first time in a doctor's office waiting room. I put a Acer Revo 3610 (my old one) with XBMC in their server closet. I ran 2 cat5e cables from the server closet to the back of the TV in the waiting room. I used this HDMI / IR over Cat5e wall plate kit from Monoprice, and it worked flawlessly. Cat5e is fairly cheap, as are short HDMI cables. IR kits used to cost ~ $100 alone. This kit is a game changer in my industry. I was very skeptical because of the $25 price tag, but they are watching 1080p mkv BluRay rips on the 50" LED in the waiting room, and controlling XBMC by pointing the remote at the IR receiver, which is stuck to the front of the TV. They think it's magic.

Hopefully this will help you with your unique situation.

Yeah I did see that set up at Monoprice. I heart monoprice. My goal is to just have one remote total. Mainly for the WAF. She already asked me if the crystalbuntu set up will still work in the theater. (no one can beat the simplicity of the apple tv remote setup, even with a harmony) Sadly she doesnt care about lossless sound or 24 frames per second. LOL Also, my harmony controls everything in the room, (Bouncing off the walls.) but also everything in the living room as well by using a monoprice ir over RF extender as well. So that URC just wont cut it. I am debating on getting an RF extender to send the signal back to the HP, or just buy a mini keyboard remote that is 2.4ghz. Right now with my Wake from s5 not working with the dongle, I am just leaning towards the minikeyboard defeating the one remote goal.

Edit: The more I think about it, the less likely I am to throw more money at this. Leaving my full size keyboard off to the side takes care of the "on from S5" problem and allows me to type and I am going to try and move the HP reciever to the top of my entertainment center stack so it makes it more like I am pointing my harmony to the ceiling rather than behind me. If i were to buy something, I would rather throw $20 at an interset CIR and repin it, if I can confirm it will receive signals bounced off walls like most CE IR devices.

Hi guys,

sorry to dig up this thread again, as it's a month old now. I've got a HP OVU400102/71, PN: 5187-4593, well actually I have 2. I can't seem to get them to work in windows 7 x84. They don't even get detected so there is no new hardware in device manager for me to even try to install drivers on. I've tested this on 2 laptops with win7 installed. Both are Dell, but one is new with both USB2.0 and USB3.0, and an older laptop that is about 4 years old.

When I plug them into the computer nothing happens, however I can see the red LED flash when i press buttons on the remote.

The funny thing is, they work fine when plugged into a windows xp machine, just no driver support.

Has anyone had this problem before and is there a tip to get them detected?

Any help would be much appreciated.

(2012-05-07 15:50)snowjim Wrote:  [quote]OVU400103/00 (HP Part #: 5188-1667)

I have one of these lying idle in Aarhus, Denmark - if anyone nearby happens to desire it (international shipping seems to be around 9USD)...
It's only the receiver with a nice little additional IR cable receiver - no remote.
Drop me a message/offer if you want it... ;-)

(2013-03-23 19:09)Gnyff Wrote:  OVU400103/00 (HP Part #: 5188-1667)

I have one of these lying idle in Aarhus, Denmark - if anyone nearby happens to desire it.

Not anymore...

(2012-05-07 15:50)snowjim Wrote:  Hi,

I have found these versions of the HP IR USB

Quote:OVU400103/00 (HP Part #: 5188-1667)
This is the most highly recommended model, but the trick is finding someone that is actually selling it. If you can find this model I’d recommend getting it as it’s been known to work well on both the Windows and Linux side.

OVU400102/71 (HP Part #: 5187-4593)
This is the model I purchased and had no troubles getting it to work on Windows 7. This seems to be one of the more common models and should be relatively easy to find on eBay.

OVU422000/06 (HP Part #: 5070-2584)
I don’t know much about this one, but I suspect it would also work well on the Windows side.

source : http://cybernetnews.com/build-xbmc-htpc/

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but this comes up as the first result on google when searching for the difference between the HP receiver model numbers.

I have found a way to easily recognise the different models, which has not been mentioned anywhere else on the internet.

The OVU400103/00 (HP Part #: 5188-1667) has a ferrite core on the cable just after the receiver:


The OVU400102/71 (HP Part #: 5187-4593) looks very similar but does not have the ferrite core:


The OVU422000/06 (HP Part #: 5070-2584) is smaller in size than the other two, and the cable leaves the receiver unit from the side, rather than in the middle of the two 3.5mm IR ports


Hope this helps people easily recognise the model they are purchasing on ebay from the pictures