Customer Reviews

URC MRF100B PowerBlaster For Use w/ MasterControl RF Series Remotes

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The device seems to work reasonably well if you play around to position it. One big problem I encountered - the MFR100B device isn't addressable. So if you have two rooms on the same floor, each with its own compatible remote and base station, you may see cross-talk where the remote in one room changes the TV in the other room. You'll need the MFR350 or MFR260 devices which have "addressable" base stations to assign a channel to a single remote.

I'm sure you understand that the way these things work is that the RF10, 20 or 30 remote sends an RF signal that is picked up by the PowerBlaster. It blasts out a very strong, very wide beam of IR that can bounce around and operate your IR-controllable equipment. It also has these little plug in flashers that you can tape to your equipment.

You might be scared off by the one reviewer who said he taped the little plug-in flashers onto his equipment items' IR windows. Of course, if you do that, the remote that came with your equipment will be blocked. The good news is that I've been using PowerBlasters for years and never had to do that. In all but one case, I could just put a PowerBlaster BESIDE the equipment, and it would generate enough IR to bounce off virtually anything in front of the equipment and do its job. I've had it bouncing off glass, a curtain, a door, and even a wall that's 14 feet across a room. Talk about ease of installation! All you do is plug these things in and they start working.

I'm not saying a single PowerBlaster is going to completely flood a large room or bounce IR around corners or whatever. It will normally work within a closet or cabinet or enclosed part of an entertainment center or with one bounce off a wall without a problem.

I've had situations in which these things were too good. I've got a home theater upstairs and a regular flat-panel in the den, and both are set up with URC RF remotes. My bride was turning on and programing the cable DVR box downstairs, and the PowerBlaster upstairs was doing the same to the box upstairs. For awhile, I couldn't figure out why All My Children kept showing up on recorded shows upstairs! My solution to this was to plug the two PowerBlasters upstairs into a switched outlet on the receiver. That way, they would be out of commission until I turned on the receiver, which I normally do manually anyway. Now the recorded Soaps stay downstairs where they belong. I'm happy to say that the IR will not go through curtains. If it did, I'd have another conflict like that one.

I should explain why I needed two PowerBlasters for the upstairs theater. I have one on the equipment rack behind the curtain. I have another sitting under the screen facing back toward the projector. The projector has a box that moves a lens back and forth in front of the projector. The box is only controllable by an IR remote. The sensor in the box is recessed, so I needed to get IR from the front of the room. This was the one time that a wall bounce wouldn't do the job. I tried bouncing off the screen in front of the projector, and it didn't work. I have to say however that the little box in question is pretty insensitive, even to its own remote.

So there it is. I'm a great believer in the URC system. I've got much more expensive remotes that I don't use, because The URCs are so reliable.

I have four remotes and four blasters in play right now, and I'm about to expand again. I'm going to use them to control the theater lighting, which is already set up with z-wave technology. No, these particular URC devices aren't z-wave compatible, but I can buy an IR remote for my Lutron z-wave system, use it to teach a URC RF-30, and let the PowerBlaster take it to the Lutron IR sensor.

I can't imagine that you'll be disappointed with the PowerBlasters. They are a solid capability at an outstanding price.

My husband loves gadgets, I hate clutter. This was the perfect solution, however neither of us expected it to work. Well...we were wrong. All our components are hidden in a closet about 15 feet away from where we use the remote. We even went outside (about 30 feet away and through several walls) and it still worked great. We didn't need any of the probes, the powerblaster transmits the signal to all the components perfectly. I am so glad we tried these before buying the Logitech.

This unit was the easiest thing I had ever setup. I purchased it to use with my URC MasterControl RF30, as recommends on Amazon, and all I had to do is plug it in and stick the IR wires on each IR receiver for each component. The IR wires have a nice flat end with two-sized tape on them already. It is working great and was very easy to setup.

NO problems encountered. Radio Control allows you to hide your equip and still control it. No annoying lights from equip and great wife acceptancy factor(WAF).

Goes with the RF30 remote a must have if you get the RF30 remote and want to use the remote anywhere.

Used this product for 3 months without problem. Suddenly, it stopped working and prevented our cable box from working. After replacing the cable box, we discovered the culprit was this product. According to the manufacturer, we are now picking up some kind of interference and IT'S NOT THEIR PROBLEM. Upon calling, given some things to try, which proived fruitless, and calling a second time, I was just dismissed without resolution. BUY their products AT YOUR OWN RISK!

If you need this product to complete your home entertainment system or make it better, I highly recommend it for the easy installation and great price. It has a video which I watched and was very helpful. You don't have to watch to install but it doesn't last long and has some good pointers. There is 11 easy steps to follow for installation in the manual. If my 2 year old could read, he could have done it.

IMPORTANT: I purchased a RF Remote(Osiris MX-350) which was a good remote but didn't know that I needed a RF Extender to make this remote work. I didn't know this when purchased. So, for anyone who wants to go this route do your research on what you might need. I did a lot of research but didn't find anything saying I needded an Extender. However, I purchased this extender and it was exactly what I needed to complete my home entertainment system.

Included in this kit you get the blaster (the face of the kit) which when viewed with NV goggles shows how much IR light it really dumps out - about 100x what a remote does, plus you get 8 mice to stick over the IR receiver of the products you are controlling, which guarantees they get the signal.

Even better, you can put these in multiple rooms and use one remote to operate equipment in various parts of the house.

I don't know where it is coming from or how to isolate it. It may be interference from outside of the home, but every once in a while the lights will flicker even though no signal is being sent from the remote. When this happen, the receiver will not accept commands from the remote.