Turned OFF Hopper or Joey drains remote's batteries

[Joe Satellite Fan]

Wondered if anyone else has noticed this and why it happens. I keep a Hopper and Joey in my 5th wheel turned off whenever I'm not traveling, wanting to avoid high temp issues with either one. When I went to set up during our last travel, the remotes for both the Hopper and Joey were almost dead. Note that these were installed back in the initial Hopper offering, but had been used perhaps 5 days tops. The Hopper and Joey had been turned off for about 2 months.

Upon returning from out trip (which lasted about a month), my house Hopper and a couple of the Joeys have "low battery" warnings. They were completely disconnected from power while we were gone.

I guess unless someone has any good ideas, the only thing to do is remove the batteries if you're going to have them shut off for any period of time.

 

[glowrdr]

You aren't still using the crappy japanese batteries that came with the remote are you? I never bother to even put those in anymore. Other than that, I can't really find any good explanation why a remote in use would work for 6 months, but one that is sitting would die in a couple.

 

[Bobby]

The next thing to think about is how you stored those remotes. Did you have them in a place where things might have been on top of them and had buttons depressed?

 

[themadman]

Wondered if anyone else has noticed this and why it happens. I keep a Hopper and Joey in my 5th wheel turned off whenever I'm not traveling, wanting to avoid high temp issues with either one. When I went to set up during our last travel, the remotes for both the Hopper and Joey were almost dead. Note that these were installed back in the initial Hopper offering, but had been used perhaps 5 days tops. The Hopper and Joey had been turned off for about 2 months.

Upon returning from out trip (which lasted about a month), my house Hopper and a couple of the Joeys have "low battery" warnings. They were completely disconnected from power while we were gone.

I guess unless someone has any good ideas, the only thing to do is remove the batteries if you're going to have them shut off for any period of time.

The new remote for the Hoppers/Joeys use bluetooth instead of IR. Thus they pair up with a master device. In bluetooth, they must check in and keep a connection with their master device, and if they loose it they will try to re-pair. Part of the bluetooth spec is to decide what the max power that is needed to transmit to reach to the master device. On each non successful pairing/re-pair the device will up the power to try to re-pair to the master. If the Hopper is off and doesn't reply, the remote will keep trying to re-pair at full bluetooth power and never receive a response, thus it will never rest or turn it's power back down and will eat batteries.

It's more of a bluetooth issue; I'm sure the designers of the remote didn't think of it to be a problem (since when would you turn off your DVR).

 

[Joe Satellite Fan]

Thanks themadman, that makes perfect sense. I guess I should just remove the batteries from those remotes when ever I know they'll just sit there for awhile.

As for other suggestions, yeah, they still had the cheapo batteries in them, but no ... they were not in a position that would case the buttons to get pressed.

Thanks all, for the suggestions.

 

[sparc]

I believe the Hopper/Joey remotes use zigbee and not bluetooth. Reading on the net, it appears zigbee is intended for low power consumption. While the hopper is bluetooth capable, nothing is currently using it right now because the software isn't ready.

"Model 40.0 Universal UHF/IR remote control using proprietary ZigBee RF4CE profile"

As to the OP's question... i'd simply try new brand name batteries and see if it works any better.

 

[GaryPen]

You aren't still using the crappy japanese batteries that came with the remote are you?

Are you sure you don't mean Chinese?

 

[Tampa8]

The new remote for the Hoppers/Joeys use bluetooth instead of IR. Thus they pair up with a master device. In bluetooth, they must check in and keep a connection with their master device, and if they loose it they will try to re-pair.

Sounds like the movie "Star Trek IV the Voyage Home - the "Whale" Movie.......

 

[glowrdr]

Are you sure you don't mean Chinese?

**Correction: You aren't still using the crappy Batter-ese are you?**

 

[GaryPen]

**Correction: You aren't still using the crappy Batter-ese are you?**

I guess you're right. No difference. Just like stuff made in Mexico and the USA. They're both in North America. So, the quality is obviously the same.

 

[Thankful]

We left on vacation for two weeks in August and I turned the Hopper off and unplugged it. I left the Joeys plugged up. While gone I saw this post and I thought uh-oh. After returning I plugged the Hopper back and everything was ok. The batteries in the Hopper remote died last week. The Joey remotes are still ok. My hypothesis is that themadman may be correct.

 

[3HaloODST]

You aren't still using the crappy japanese batteries that came with the remote are you? I never bother to even put those in anymore. Other than that, I can't really find any good explanation why a remote in use would work for 6 months, but one that is sitting would die in a couple.

Shoot, I've managed to make those batts last well over a year in my 722k remotes and some of them are still going strong in the Hopper/Joey remotes. Yes they all get a lot of use. The only thing I make sure to do (and suggested to everyone else to do) is to use PAGE UP/PAGE DN instead of holding the arrow keys down when scrolling. Saves a good bit of juice I presume.

 

[keckge]

I know now that they send batteries with your replacement 40.0 remote, if I was wasteful I would just throw the remote away when the batteries wore out and have them ship me a new one. Those batteries are great! They last forever compared to the ones I buy at the store. I actually laughed with the tech once and said I was going to call in a trouble report and make him come out and change all of my remote batteries LOL. He goes you will not believe the idiots that actually think their boxes are broken because their remotes batteries are dead. He goes I go to people's houses all the time and replace their remote batteries.

 

[DishSubLA]

The common advice is that if one feels it necessary to disconnect a device like the Hopper/Joey, then the batteries should be removed from the remote. Is this advice not in just about every set of consumer electronics user guides. I don't view this as a flaw with the CE device, but a human fault for not removing the batteries as common sense if one isn't going to use the battery powered device for extended periods--and weeks qualify as an extended period. Simple solution.

 

[sparc]

My hypothesis is that themadman may be correct.

except for that whole part about bluetooth since the remotes aren't bluetooth capable and his whole theory is based on that wrong information...

 

[Joe Satellite Fan]

Ok, I replaced all the batteries with new fresh Duracells and all is well. However, we went on a short 5 day trip and I shut down everything in the house. Didn't remove the batteries. Sure enough, when we go back all the remotes showed up as being low. Had the camper sit unused for about a month and I had removed the batteries ... put the batteries back in and all is good.
So, final word: If you're gonna shut off the Hopper or Joey, remove the batteries from the remotes.

 

[356B]

I had this battery drain thing....at first I thought it was the cheap ones Dish sends along with the remotes, now I'm not sure.
I put copper tops in all remotes and one of the Joey remotes which never get used is showing low.....odd isn't it? One thing is for sure, posters are reporting the phenomena, and it appears it's not an isolated .

 

[dare2be]

Just so we're clear here, "turned off" means no power to the Hopper or Joey, not just Standby, correct?

 

[sethwell]

Ok, I replaced all the batteries with new fresh Duracells and all is well. However, we went on a short 5 day trip and I shut down everything in the house. Didn't remove the batteries. Sure enough, when we go back all the remotes showed up as being low. Had the camper sit unused for about a month and I had removed the batteries ... put the batteries back in and all is good.
So, final word: If you're gonna shut off the Hopper or Joey, remove the batteries from the remotes.

Where do you store your remotes when you are finished with your camper? Are they in an area that your bump out is in? Maybe they are being pushed because of something pressing into them? Just a thought.

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