Need a cheap/functional USB IR Receiver

[mitchafi]

I picked up a Logitech Harmony 550 remote courtesy of hot deals forum and now want to use it with my PC. Problem is, I can't find any USB IR receivers for sale that don't make you buy the remote too, and consequently spend more money than I want to. Does anyone know of one that will do the trick and can be bought cheaply/individually?

TIA,
Mitch

 

[mpilchfamily]

Don't know about stand alone USB IRs. But most motherboards have a set of pins on them for an IR receiver. Here is some info on that option.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/86

 

[Zepper]

Trouble is that those IR receiver pins were usually on a dual use, RS232 serial port (could be set for serial or IR rcvr. Those legacy ports are pretty much gone now. No reason a USB one couldn't be made, but one would think that a remote would come with a receiver as almost no desktops come with one as std. equip - some laptops/notebooks do. What about Google et al.?

.bh.

 

[Zepper]

Here's one:

.bh.