PS3IR-PROOne of the annoying things about the PS3 (and to be fair, there are less and less of those as the system gets subsequent firmware upgrades) is its lack of an IR port. Sony says they didn’t need one, because they offer their Bluetooth remote, but for those of us committed to a one-remote lifestyle, this just doesn’t cut it.

That’s where the A/V nerd community comes in. I first was able to connect my PS3 to my Pronto using the PSone remote workaround. This was clunky, but it worked. Then Schmartz came out with a USB dongle device that was able to accomplish this with a simple plug. This was the same method, but a lot less cumbersome, and I was pretty happy for a while. Then Schmartz announced the PS3IR-PRO, a little device that not only replicates all the previous functions, but adds in everything else from Sony’s Bluetooth remote, like power and eject.

It accomplishes this feat because the box is just an IR to Bluetooth bridge. Your universal remote sends the IR signal, and it in turn sends the corresponding Bluetooth code to the PS3. Simple and effective.

My PS3IR-PRO arrived this evening, and I’m happy to report that it works like a charm. Getting it to sync was a little unwieldy, since my minimalist Pronto interface meant I had to specifically create temporary buttons to sync, but once I got that out of the way it worked great. I can now turn my PS3 on and off from my Pronto and eject DVDs/games/etc. w00p.

Ever since Sony added the ability to resume DVD playback automatically (please tell me why every DVD player in the world doesn’t do this?), my PS3 has been my default DVD player of choice. But not having all functions on the remote was a bit of a pain. Thankfully, that’s no longer an issue.

The one slight annoyance is that because the PS3 doesn’t keep its USB port powered on when the system is turned off, I need to leave the device plugged into something else. Thankfully my TiVo doesn’t have that problem (for one thing, it’s always on) so I just have it plugged in there. And if for some reason I decide that doesn’t work right, I can always plug it into my Wii.

Thank you Mike Muecke for correcting something that Sony should have done from day one. You’ve given my PS3 its dignity back.