Bugzilla – Bug 3430
IR interaction between two adjacent squeezeboxes
Last modified: 2011-11-06 23:25:10 UTC
Because my kitchen is quite large and the Squeezebox screen is so small I have bought another Squeezebox to put at the other end of the kitchen. More often than not the two Squeezeboxes will both pick up the signal from the remote, but not consistently. This causes havoc with the menus, searching etc. Is there a way to make other Squeezeboxes on the network ignore the remote once one Squeezebox has picked up the signal? It seems like something that could be done in the code - once one squeezebox has indicated that it has started to receive something then the others could be locked out for a few seconds?
I wonder if you put some tape over the LED on the remote control to dim it out sufficiently that only the closest SB will respond. Seriously. I'm afraid that having one SB receiving IR stop the other one wouldn't really solve the problem too much (speed of light means that they'll both get the signal essentially at the same time. This is also a problem that chris has while doing testing, so I'll leave it open for you guys to brainstorm on, but right now I don't have a better solution.
This is a constant source of aggravation for me as well, since in doing testing, my desk is loaded with squeezeboxes. I tried Dean's idea yesterday with fair success. I used black electrical tape over the LED with only a small hole right over the tip of the emitter LED. A slightly higher tech solution would be gray tinted plastic over the LED, or an additional resistor in line with the LED to cut down on the output. The electrical tape works well for me because I started with a very small hole, and enlarged it until it was working well. It also makes the beam more directional. Instead of spreading off to the sides where it can reflect off of every light surface, light only comes out in a fairly narrow beam. Give it a try! You might find it works well for you. I'd be reluctant to add a solution like you propose where other SBs are 'locked out' temporarily. Sync features are some of the buggiest areas of the product, and I'd be afraid the bugs introduced might not outweigh the benefits. If you really feel strongly it's something we should add, though, we can keep this bug in here.
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