By now you probably know that DIRECTV’s HR44 Genie uses a new remote technology to more securely “pair” the remote with the DVR. You probably also know that you can use more than one remote in the same room. There’s no limit to the number of remotes you can use in IR mode, but what about RF mode?
We made some official inquiries and even DIRECTV’s top engineers are mute on the subject (mute, get it?) so we did some research on our own with several testers across the country.
We believe that there is a limit of 4 RF remotes per Genie. No one in our test group was able to make it work with more remotes than that. The settings would copy over but if we added a fifth remote, one of the original four would stop working. A poster at DBSTalk.com found the same thing as well.
The testing is pretty conclusive and we feel comfortable that you won’t be able to use more than four RF remotes at the same time. But remember, HR44 Genie DVRs and C41 Mini Clients can use IR and RF remotes at the same time, so if you want to outfit the whole room with a remote at every chair, just make sure that only four of them are RF and the rest are IR.
When you get down to it, four RF remotes is probably a pretty good limit, don’t you think?
