Range of controllers ?

[joebre]

Firstly, I am delighted to find this site and am amazed at the works in the various houses.
I bought a fully finished show-house and there have been some limits on where I could draw cables.
My homebase is in a wardrobe with Cat6 and HDMI to most locations.
I have a Popcorn Hour connected to a InFocus PJ, some 15m away.
I would like to locate an Xbox 360 /Wii /HTPC in the cabinet.
What is the range of control of accessories such as keyboards, controllers/
I am typing using a wireless keyboard and mouse and find that the range is only about 3m!

[elootos]

(02-21-2010 06:26 PM)joebre Wrote:  Firstly, I am delighted to find this site and am amazed at the works in the various houses.
I bought a fully finished show-house and there have been some limits on where I could draw cables.
My homebase is in a wardrobe with Cat6 and HDMI to most locations.
I have a Popcorn Hour connected to a InFocus PJ, some 15m away.
I would like to locate an Xbox 360 /Wii /HTPC in the cabinet.
What is the range of control of accessories such as keyboards, controllers/
I am typing using a wireless keyboard and mouse and find that the range is only about 3m!

Hi there and welcome to the site! Glad you found it

The range is highly dependent on the hardware in question. My wireless keyboards are a few metres with just single lightweight obstacle in the way (door etc). Whereas my gyration remotes are a quite a bit further; a couple of rooms or floors away, practically almost anyway in my house. But my house is timber framed so the range is good because of that.

For you, I wouldn't guess more than a single wall in your house for most devices. But you can always extend the USB receivers with a 5m extension cable and lay them nearer to where you are operating them. I do this in my bedroom to move the keyboard/mouse receiver to the middle of of my ceiling to maximise pickup.

How you finding Popcorn Hour? Always heard lots of people using it but never looked into its operation at all.

[joebre]

Thanks for reply.
I would need to lay about 15m of USB because of the route I would have to take to get the receiver in the same room as PC screen. Did I read that there is a limit on the length of USB cable that you can use?
Need to upgrade my 360 to an Elite and use the HDMI to connect to the projector. Would like to have 360 out of sight even though it would mean going upstairs and into the back of the walk-in wardrobe to change disks.
Presume that I would have similiar issues with a Wii or PS3 even though I do not have either yet.
Not using the Popocorn to its full potential yet. Best to use an internal hard disk and get wireless adapter for streaming.
I just use an external HD and connect using HDMI to the PJ. I like the fact that firmware is upgradable.
Have a URC MX-810 RF remote that I use to control my AV stuff that is out of sight.

[northan]

(02-23-2010 11:34 PM)joebre Wrote:  Thanks for reply.
I would need to lay about 15m of USB because of the route I would have to take to get the receiver in the same room as PC screen. Did I read that there is a limit on the length of USB cable that you can use?

Yes your right about the length. The option is to either extend the range with active usb hubs, which boost the power along the way.
Not a very pretty solution as you got to power each 5 meter section.

Other option is to use a balun to extend the usb up to 50 meters.
You only need to use simple cat 5/6 cable between the points you need. A simple one for example can be found here

If your looking to control all your gear from a central hub you could also think about a rf. or infrared network.
I think some people here have used infrared distrubution kits from keene. They do some nice kits.
I know you can also get rf repeaters to extend the range of rf but personally I've not found a great system yet and also it can be funny with frequency compatibilty.

(02-23-2010 11:34 PM)joebre Wrote:  Need to upgrade my 360 to an Elite and use the HDMI to connect to the projector. Would like to have 360 out of sight even though it would mean going upstairs and into the back of the walk-in wardrobe to change disks.

You don't need to have the elite to get hdmi.
As long as the xbox is not arcade I believe they all come with HDMI out.
Well mine certainly did and its not elite.

I hope it helps

[elootos]

(02-23-2010 11:34 PM)joebre Wrote:  Thanks for reply.
I would need to lay about 15m of USB because of the route I would have to take to get the receiver in the same room as PC screen. Did I read that there is a limit on the length of USB cable that you can use?

I use these Newlink USB extenders all the time. Upto 4 (or 5?) can be linked up to create 20m or more. There'll be enough power at the end for a USB IR receiver, but anything like a USB drive will need extra power to it. I have 2 of the Newlink extenders reaching down from the attic to behind my TV and I have a 4 port hub plugged into them. The hub then has it's own 5V power supply that powers anything plugged into it.

[joebre]

I have a spare Cat 6 in my PJ room so I can use an USB extender for the mouse and keyboard !
What about the Xbox360 or Wii when I get that?
How do I extende the range of the controllers for the consoles?

[elootos]

(02-27-2010 11:42 AM)joebre Wrote:  I have a spare Cat 6 in my PJ room so I can use an USB extender for the mouse and keyboard !
What about the Xbox360 or Wii when I get that?
How do I extende the range of the controllers for the consoles?

The Wii controllers are IR, so an IR extender would sort that out I guess. As for the 360, I don't think there's an easy way for that. They're 30ft as standard but beyond that you'd have to physically extend the antenna internally

Maybe a wired controller with extension cable perhaps?

[huxley]

Sorry to butt in but the Wii motes are RF or bluetooth. They only use the Ir for the location of the pointer on the screen. The Wii mote transmits the data to the console by one of the above methods. The bar thing is plugged into the console for power.
If you get one of those battery sensor bar things you can have the wii in another room as long as you have a video feed to that location.

[elootos]

(03-15-2010 09:25 PM)huxley Wrote:  Sorry to butt in but the Wii motes are RF or bluetooth. They only use the Ir for the location of the pointer on the screen. The Wii mote transmits the data to the console by one of the above methods. The bar thing is plugged into the console for power.
If you get one of those battery sensor bar things you can have the wii in another room as long as you have a video feed to that location.

Ah, got it! Yes, just read this wiki article on the Wii mote and you're correct, it's all bluetooth for connectivity to the console and it uses its internal gyroscopic sensor for xyz movement, then the remote also picks up the IR transmitted from the sensorbar to know in which direction it's pointing, bloody clever and thorough stuff Nintendo!

[joebre]

Just got the Wii and set it up in the room with the TV.
I now realise that if I had placed the Wii with my other equipment on the next floor, I would have to go there each time I would want to change a game.
I now think I will leave the Wii near the TV and run a phono extension lead back top the amp.
This would get sound to my amp and the video output of the Wii would connect directly to the TV !