Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

I know these play hell with NTL remotes, and right now mine is almost usless even within a foot of the box, anyone got any tips apart from turning the light off everytime I want to change station :dozey:

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Change the light bulb.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

I've found that after about an hour, the remote starts working a little better, but to be honest, I did what SLM said and changed the bulb...

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

This is because as you have these bulbs switched on longer they warm up and the frequency of the light generated changes so that it doesn't produce as much Infra-Red light at the "wrong" frequency any more.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Try a different make of bulb - the frequency of these is not tightly controlled, and will vary between units of the same type, brands, age and temperature.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

My energy saving bulbs don't intefere with any of my remotes.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Ok cheers, I'll try a diff brand and if that don't help then I'll have to go back to normal blulb.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

think its bad news when we all talk about saving energy, but yet silly things likeremotes not working has to stop this

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

We use LED bulbs in our house and they dont interefere, although they are an expensive bulb if you go for the 2Watt version.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

No interference here either. However, this whole notion totally astounds me in the same way that ntl won't work with certain types of television. Not exactly encouraging is it.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Just a quick update, I changed it for another make bulb I had in the kitchen, and since then I have had no problems.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Can we name brands of bulbs that don't appear to cause this? just in case we can't, there's a BIG chain of Superstores, probably one of the biggest if not the biggest who's own brand bulbs haven't caused this problem for me, every little helps eh? ;)

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Wring them up and get a new one!

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

The one that works fine has House & Home written on it, god knows what shop it came from though.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

I do not think you can blame ntl re this as IR technology has been around a hell of a lot longer than energy saving bulbs and lcd/plasma tvs.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

NTL dont make the boxes or decide the IR Frequency either...

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

True but I have never known any other problems before with any other kind of technology which is operated by remote controls such as TVs, video recorders, hifis etc. Only ntl.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

I think the manufacturers just made a poor choice when choosing the IR frequency to use

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

We had a similar, but even more ludicrous experience at Christmas. We bought my son a set of Lazer Tag guns. They're fancy ones that record the hits from the other guns, so they're always sending and receiving I guess.

As soon as we turned them on the Samsung cable box went haywire, flicking through channels of it's own accord and allsorts of weird stuff. As soon as we turned the guns off it stopped. But the remote still wouldn't take control of the box again until after we'd rebooted the cable box...weird.

Now he doesn't play with them in the lounge where the cable box is...lol :)

Didn't effect any of the other stuff with remotes though, hifi, tv, video, dvd.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Forgive me if I am wrong but my knowledge on this matter is not great. but the reason this would only affect your set top box and not your tv etc is they both use different forms of infrared to control each other.

TV's etc use a very simple for of infrared that only allows simple commands.

Sky NTL etc use irDA, this is a form of transfering data between devices (often seen in mobile phones and laptops etc. this is a more complex technology that can transfer data rather tahn simple light beams.

Thats why ya telly etc don't get confused, you could say it uses a dumb form of command!

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Not all of NTL's boxes use IRDA rather than Standard IR mind you

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

No problems with lightbulbs on Sky

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Hi Zeph was under the understanding that all digital boxes did use irDA, but as I said im no expert..

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Millay, the Samsung one does not, of that I am certain

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

arhh we learn something new everyday..

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Hi can you help me i have a problem my channels keep on freezing i rang ntl and all they told me is that it was my light bulbs interfereing i have since changed my light bulbs and the problem is still there (even though i've had a new stb installed). can anyone give me some advice on this matter

Thanks in advance

Graeme :confused:

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

hi :welcome:

If the problem is still there, I would phone them again, at least this time you can answer 'no' to the 'have you got any energy saving or flourescent lights?' , question. :)

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

I've phoned them and they are sending someone out on monday to hopefully get this sorted Cheers

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Can anyone report whether the new V+ boxes are affected by energy saving lightbulbs please?

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

I have an upright floor lamp full of energy saving bulbs not some two feet from my V+ box, no problems there.

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

Would more than one bulb in an array combine to alter the frequency?

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

If you get a digital camera and point you a remote at it you can see the infa red .I have tried it on differnt remotes and you can see it as a white light from the remote .If you had the right stuff i wonder if you could look at a energy saving light bulb and a VM remote to see the clash .:tu:

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

I found this when I replaced my old CRT for an LCD tv, couln't figure out why the remote would not respond until the tele had been on for 3-5 mins, then it worked as normal.
The screens obviously give out some form of IR when warming up because when I bought a smaller LCD for the bedroom, in which I have a IR remote light dimmer switch, when I turned the tv on it faded the lights up then down then up and finally off. It doesn't effect any other remotes, I have the older Pace STB, I know this uses a different type of frequency than the newer boxes, maybe they are not affected?

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

I've found that the Pace box seems to be sensitive to other light sources, more so than anything else. (I have a new one, but my older one had the same issue).

A particular gotcha is if ANY other remote control is stuck in the "on" position.. for example if something is resting on a button or it's just plain faulty. If your Pace box suddenly gets unresponsive, then check for another IR transmitter. (Many mobile phones and laptops have IR as well, this could potentially cause intermittant problems)

As an aside, did you know that the IR bulb shows up on pretty much any digital camera or camcorder, including camera phones? It's a useful quick test to see if your remote is working properly..

Re: Energy saving bulbs and remote.
 

I've managed to get around the problem with my current Pace box. My energy saving lightbulbs have 2 settings, full and half brightness. Using the half brightness setting gets rid of the problem.