Discussion

USB IR Transceiver

buckle8017: Presumably there just isn't that much use for that anymore.Most remotes seem to be RF not ir these days.

ovi256: Especially given the hardware has no moat and there are a zillion IR transceivers on Aliexpress. It's not a good market.

rlam2x51: Home Assistant* introduced support for infrared a few days ago. Not sure if it would be a good idea to stay in business for a bit longer and see if the Home Assistant community boost the sales.I am personally interested in an IR Sender to make my old Hifi Setup smarter.* https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2026/04/01/release-20264/

teddyh: I’m guessing that modern hardware are all controlled by privacy-invading apps, communicating via the company’s servers.

tclancy: Yes, same exact boat, I was just starting to think about looking for a small, cheap device in this space for HA.

Aurornis: Sad to see someone’s small business close, but these products are in a difficult position of being both extremely niche and very simple. Someone went to some effort to source a nice dongle enclosure and do some printing on it, but beyond that the hardware is something that anyone with a little PCB experience could replicate it in a day. I wouldn’t be surprised if these were just sourced from a generic manufacturer in China and they asked for custom printing.If there’s demand this would be a good project for someone to make and have ready to build PCBs you could order from OSH Park or even a fully project that you could have JLC build and populate.

antonvs: This company and product line launched nearly 20 years ago (2007) and doesn’t seem to have changed much since. That’s quite a long time for something like this. If the owners had wanted the business to continue (perhaps they didn’t), some diversification could have achieved that relatively easily.

rlam2x51: Let me know if you find one! I wanted to wait for a few months to let the experienced smart homers pave the way.