Sunday, August 19, 2007

NYKO Blu Wave IR Remote (PS3)



http://www.nyko.com/nyko/products/?i=113#

- Picked it up for $20 shipped from newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16879213018&Tpk=bluwave
- IR dongle is nice and small
- Still works by emulating a ps2 controller through usb. This means no PS button and no ability to turn the ps3 on/off.
- Also has the same drawback where if you leave the dongle plugged in, you turn on the ps3 with your wireless ps3 six axis controller, your six axis is controller #2 and your IR dongle/remote becomes controller #1. I find this quite annoying. Anybody know of a work around besides leaving the IR dongle unplugged when booting the ps3 to play games? UPDATE: If you hit the PS button you can reassign your real controller as controller #1. The assignment seems to stick between standby/on power cycles (sometimes...still seems a bit inconsistent).
- Programming into the Harmony remote is a snap. The learn function works just fine (no need for RAW mode).
- Nicely labeled buttons on the remote makes learning on the harmony that much easier.
- A much cleaner/nicer solution than the usb -> ps2 adapter + ps2 ir remote dongle. But it basically accomplishes the exact same thing.

Sony NEEDS to update the firmware to allow 3rd party usb IR dongles to have full access to the blu-ray player and power on/off capabilities so a proper IR remote can be created. This will do for now but it's far from perfect. It's times like these I really hate Sony. Amazing how by them cutting corners just to save a few bucks on an IR receiver has caused so much frustration.

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