Hi everyone,
I got the new UPC TV Box.
It’s a vast improvement over the previous box on almost every aspect.
One big exception though: the automatic forced pairing between the remote and the TV is a huge design flaw and a poorly designed feature, a typical “what were they thinking?” feature.
It might be convenient to some but it’s a nightmare for others, especially if you use a Logitech Harmony to control all your activities.
For example, my TV would randomly turn off while watching a Blu-Ray using a Blu-Ray player, or playing PS4, because the UPC TV Box (which turned on automatically when the TV was on) went on stand-by.
Talking to Tech Support didn’t help, but they are aware this is a problem and promised UPC is currently working on a fix (with no ETA unfortunately).
After some trial and error, I found a way to fix the problem.
There are two issues here:
- The remote will automatically pair to your TV. Go to the menu and manually pair it to another TV from another brand. In my case, I went to Samsung, typed “40UE” (you can type the first 4 letters of any Samsung model) and the remote paired to it. I obviously don’t have a Samsung TV.
- the bigger problem is that the box sends a CEC signal to the TV via the HDMI cable (no matter what the pairing status is). To disable that, you have to understand the HDMI cable specifications: https://www.hdmi.org/installers/insidehdmicable.aspx
Pin n°13 (CEC) transmits the CEC signal.
Take a small needle or screwdriver and push that pin out on one end of your HDMI cable.
You do not need to remove it and it should be reversible (you can push it back).
Now, whenever you switch the UPC TV Box on/off, it will not switch your TV on/off
P.S.: It may be possible to disable CEC in your TV menu but you do not necessarely want that, in case it is used properly by other devices you own.