Turns out it is indeed something like “IR interference”.

When describing the issue, I omitted one “detail” that in all my testing never occurred to me could be the root of all evil:

The mechanical device itself is controlled via IR. I.e. what actually happens when I press the Apple Remote button is that Remote Buddy sends a network signal to an IRTrans network device which in turn issues an IR signal to control the mechanical device (a motor driven volume control of a stereo amplifier).

Now, the reason that this obvious source of trouble never came to my mind before I read your reply is that when I used the original IR remote control for the amplifier, nothing at all ever got triggered on my Mac mini (and vice versa), so I always thought these two IR receivers are completely isolated from each other.

But it seems the signal the IRTrans device sends is MUCH stronger than that of the original IR remote control for the amplifier: even when I wrapped the IRTrans device in paper now to test the possible IR interference, the issue still occurred. Only when I put the IRTrans device into another room (!), it stopped. So maybe the issue is not even an identical pulse sequence, but some kind of “overdriving” or, as you put it, interference?

I have no experience with IR technology. If this was a problem with a radio controlled device, I would try different carrier frequencies, channels etc. But from what I can see, there are no comparable settings here.

Isn’t the IR receiver in the Mac mini assumed to react only to IR signals of a “paired” device (which the Apple Remote is, and the IRTrans of course is not)? Also, I use the IRTrans device for various other tasks, too, and it never triggers anything in Remote Buddy except this button release signal (but it triggers the release signal for all buttons of the Apple Remote, not just the “Plus” button in my example).

From your experience with IR devices, is there anything I could try, or do I simply have to give up on using an Apple Remote to control the volume of my stereo amplifier?

Last edited: 20.06.2016 11:29:48

Last edited: 20.06.2016 11:30:05