I want a fun but useful project to do to get started with circuits so I want to create a simple IR repeater. The problem I'm trying to solve is my media cabinet it off to the left of the couch and one of my boxes is very picky so I have to stand up and point it directly at it for it to work. I would like to create an IR sensor that higher and on the right wall so when I point it at that it repeats the signal directly across to the box. Should this be a pretty simple project, I've started to do some research and nothing looks really advanced except when they start talking about interference. Any tips, is this a simple project for a noob?

 

I'd say it's doeable, but with the sensitivity tuning needed, I wouldn't really call it simple.

You might be able to get away with a circuit using just a single transistor.

Use an IR receiver diode inside a shielded cardboard tube aimed at the couch, driving a transistor that powers an IR transmitter LED aimed at the media cabinet.

You'd need to adjust the input sensitivity to swing between off and on with your remote's signal, and adjust the output power to drive the transmitting LED hard enough to run the devices.