EA Sports ATH-AAA Remote Control

The Problem
I wanted cable TV in my kitchen without a bunch of wires running around. I hard wired the walls and put the cable box in the cabinet.  The problem is that I couldn't use the cable remote without opening the cabinet.  So I purchased a UFO.  There are four or five brands of this floating around.  Mine was a NEXT Generation, but they're all the same thing re-branded.

What's included
The basic functional setup consists of a battery shaped RF transmitter, a RF-to-IR base station that is shaped like a mini UFO, a pair of rechargeable 2/3-AAA size batteries, and a 120v power supply.

Simple Setup with some Leakage
Put the 2/3 AAA batteries in the flying saucer, and plug it in for a few days. Go about your daily life.  After the recommended 24-36 hours of charge time has passed, re-open your flying saucer.  Leave a battery behind as a backup, and put the other one into the battery shaped transceiver and use that to replace your AAA or AA remote battery (using the appropriate adapter) in your remote control.  Position your flying saucer somewhere in front of your cable box or whatever it is you want to operate, plug it in, and start flipping.

To the Base & Beyond
It's amazingly well thought out, as each IR command issued by your remote also produces a small amount of RF leakage that "looks" just like the IR command. So the transceiver handles the task of sniffing out this tiny RF signal, amplifying it, and forwarding it to the base station -effectively making your IR remote into an RF remote.  
From the tiny UFO base station, the received RF commands are translated back into IR and beamed out, both from the UFO-shaped blaster dome and the 3.5-mm plug on the unit (for you IR repeater folks). 


"Flying" your Saucer
In my tests, the extender worked well. I got about 50-feet of range with a wall between the UFO and the remote in open air.  Walls knock this range down quickly, and I have my UFO in a closed cabinet in my kitchen with my cable box.  It works in the kitchen, which was my goal.   The hardest part for me was getting over the habit of pointing the remote at the TV or cable box, which is no longer necessary, but I still feel if my "Aim" is off, I might not switch channels quickly enough.

Achieving Balance in your Galaxy
I was so excited by my flying saucer that I ordered another one for my downstairs TV.  The immediate problem was the downstairs remote controlling my TV in the kitchen.  The problem was solved by lowering the antennas on the motherships.