[UK] Tip for low cost IR MS MCE remotes

Not sure if this is the right place to put this – but if you’re in the UK and looking for a low cost RC6 USB IR receiver solution (and bundled remote) then Maplin’s clearance shop has them for £3.99 on eBay. Postage is quite steep, but if you buy more than one it doesn’t increase much. I bought two for £11.99 delivered. Not bad value.

They are the standard European Rosewill, fully MS MCE compatible USB dongle with a standard black, rectangular Vista+Win 7 MCE remote (With the round green button rather than the square one) with the European Teletext and Fastext buttons. I’ve found them a great fit with Kodi, particularly if you use a PVR solution for TV viewing. These are proper MS Home HID type solutions, not a keyboard HID device. Sadly, unlike the original silver MS XP MCE remote, there is no backlight.

Product codes on them are :

USB Receiver : IR605A/Q
IR Remote : RC118 (A49HA)

Both my boxes were still sealed.

I’ve had great success with them in LibreElec on Raspberry Pis and Chromeboxes (I sometimes use the bundled remote but often use a One4All)

This used to retail at £20 until recently (retail price is now £7.20 – so it looks like they are trying to shift them.