DIRECTV does not make a waterproof remote. Unfortunately they never have.
Well, that was a short article…
but wait. Just because the remote isn’t truly waterproof, does that mean you have to treat it like a newborn baby? I did some research with a standard Genie remote and I got some very encouraging results.
Splash test
In this test I took some water and splashed it on the remote. It worked even while wet and all I had to do was wipe it down. It continued to work.
Cola test
In this test I took full on, sugary cola and splashed in the remote. It still worked, and after I wiped it off it continued to work. However it did make the parts sticky and I couldn’t quite get all the stickiness to come out. It took some work but I was able to disassemble the remote. If you open the battery hatch there are some small phillips screws that you can remove. With a little bit of pushing and prying you can get to the button assembly. I wiped everything down carefully, put it back together and it worked great.
Bathtub test
I took a DIRECTV remote with the batteries installed and put it in a tub full of water. Surprisingly it still worked when I took it out. However I could hear some sloshing inside so I removed the back battery hatch, took out the batteries and shook it. Some water came out. I left it in a warm dry place for about three days. After putting in fresh batteries it worked great. Really the only thing that failed was the batteries.
If you’re really worried about liquids getting in…
…put the remote in a standard “zipper” type bag. Because it’s RF-enabled, it will have no problem shooting a strong signal through the bag. I do this in hotel rooms all the time and if you put the front of the remote opposite to the zipper side of the bag, it even works to control the TV volume most of the time. So if you’re taking your TV system out to the pool or something, a zipper bag should keep the remote going as long as you need.
