RF Remotes...?

SysTech_Larry · Post by **SysTech_Larry** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 12:28 pm

Last night's episode of High Potential mentioned an RF remote as a historical plot point. Were RF remotes a thing in 2014?

Post by **The Robman** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 12:53 pm

Radio Shack and One For All had RF remotes in the 90s

MaskedMan · Post by **MaskedMan** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 3:43 pm

All RF universal remotes in 2014 were IR only controlling remotes but used their own RF frequency to do it from afar.

SysTech_Larry · Post by **SysTech_Larry** » Thu Jan 30, 2025 2:23 am

MaskedMan wrote:All RF universal remotes in 2014 were IR only controlling remotes but used their own RF frequency to do it from afar.

How did that work? Was there a power switch for the RF mode?

Post by **The Robman** » Thu Jan 30, 2025 7:48 am

We're talking about remotes like the Radio Shack 15-2117, 15-1925 and One For All URC-8090 and URC-9910, if you want to look them up.

These remotes are traditional IR remotes, but they have an RF antenna built into them, which communicates with an RF base unit. Then, suppose you had some of your components in a different room or in a cupboard, you would position the bae unit so that it had line of sight with the components, or you could attach an IR blaster and use that. Then you could use the IR feature of your remote to communicate with the devices that you can see, and the RF feature to communicate with those that you cannot.

These units were not designed to control devices that use RF remotes.