This is aimed at Uk users as they will know what SkyHD is and magic eyes, its also a tale of a mystery interference
The basics
Sky magic eye
Upstairs Tv
Magic eye has always worked but started to become unreliable and only worked now and again
Changed Magic eye, all seemed well when installed, at night when needed failed to work
??? No control at all from magic eye
Magic eye is pretty basic. Recieves IR from remote, passes voltage to Sky box, Sky box behaves as normal
I scratched my head for days on this, read all the old internet articles in case i missed something obvious and then one night when the Mrs had gone up to watch Tv and screeched down it wasent working again i had an idea
I shut down all st connected devices… the magic eye sprung to life on the upstairs Tv ??
Switching items back on one at a time found the offending item, a set of wire led lights pinned across one end of my lounge ceiling which is directly below the room with the magic eye
How led lights affect an IR signal from a sky remote control perplexes me, but its a fact and now when she wants to watch sky upstairs and control the box we simply shut the leds down one end of the lounge
Anyone have any thoughts about what interference is given off by led wire lighting and how that can affect a sky magic eye or IR signal
First of all “magic eye“ is a device class, not a brand-name. There are many different brands and models that do essentially the same thing, but actually operate on different frequencies. So can’t diagnose in that sense.
But there are two separate things to know. Any magic eye device is subject to interference. Could be from the television itself, could be from a mains line. See the following
Do NOT run the RF coaxial cable alongside any mains power cable! The interference from the mains can stop the “eye” from working, or make it unreliable.
Second, yes, a string of LED’s can create interference. Even a string of Christmas fairy lights. Because, you know, physics.
To be honest, most field techs when they run into something reproducible like this will start by just checking If there’s something that can be moved a meter or so anywhere along the travel path. Plug the LEDs into a different socket, check the travel path for the magic eye wire, nothing exciting. Just trial and error until you find something that doesn’t have the same interference.
So… It’s not surprising that it’s happening, but the solution is just to try to physically change where the two devices are so they don’t interfere so much.
Thanks JD, there may be many makes of magic eye but they all work the same, recieve IR command from remote, eye converts signal to voltage, sky box rf2 with power on accepts voltage, sky box converts voltage back to command
Unfortunately we cannot move the ceiling lighting or the Tv above in a different room, the above tv cabling (Rf,) all go up inside the wall to the attic over the bedrooms and travel back down inside a wall a good distance from the led lighting
I understand and agree led creates interference but that much !!! Enough to completely disrupt IR in a room above … just seems odd, infact in the same room as the ceiling leds but below them and closer than the offending set sits the Sky box itself, using the remote to the sky box has no issues, only the remote to eye gets issues
As for mains line, no cant be that, the tradfri socket is in a plug that is not on the same ring, infact i have lotsv of led lighting plugged in and only this one set seems to affect things
There are 2 seperate sets of wired leds on the ceiling, i removed the controler, a simple ir dimmer controler from the offending set, i wander if adding one back would stop the interference
Did you get a chance the read the first article I linked to?
The different brands are definitely engineered differently and some are more susceptible to interference than others.
The interference isn’t with the IR. It’s with the RF being sent along the cable.
Even a single LED is enough to cause interference if it’s in just the right spot. Once the signal is interfered with anywhere along the cable run, it’s lost from then on.
There just generic wire leds controled by a zigbee Tradfri socket…Unfortunately we cannot move the ceiling lighting or the Tv above in a different room, the above tv cabling (Rf,) all go up inside the wall to the attic over the bedrooms and travel back down inside a wall a good distance from the led lighting
First, read the troubleshooting article. It has a number of suggestions.
Replacing the controller is certainly worth a try.
The issue was resolved JD as said above and i also changed the magic eye, switching the leds off resolved the problem
I understand a near by led can disrupt the Rf but the offending leds are not even close or even in the same room, even more confusing where the rf terminates behind the sky box at a wall plate a set of exactly the same leds trail across the fly lead from wall to sky box rf2 and these have no affect what so ever
All very mysterious, odviously its interference, just a very strange version
If i can find the controller that dims them i will plug it back onto them, who knows it might help
