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In Search of the Best Programmable Universal Remote?
option8 asks: "Now that i have more components in my living room than I have room on the coffee table for their remotes, I'm looking into getting a programmable universal remote. I've looked at some of the spiffy touchscreen jobs, like the Philips Pronto and even some of the new color remotes, but it seems to me that spending more for my remote than I did on my DVD player is overdoing it somewhat. Also, all I've found are ones with windows support for building screens. Are there any out there that I can use with Linux?" There was a previous Ask Slashdot on this subject back in '99, anything new to report since then?
Check out the review of the Home Theater Master MX-500 at http://www.remotecentral.com. It's not a touchscreen so if has good tactile feedback, but has LCD labels on some of the buttons. Nice remote.
There seems to be some sort of design law on this
Very cheap units have a simple remote control with limited functionality and a few buttons. Cheap units where they want to bump the price a little has a simple remote control with limited functionality and HUNDREDS of buttons. Mid price has mediocre functionality, fewer buttons, and a LCD/swivel cover/joystick. The best stuff has high functionality, just enough buttons for that, and nothing else.
As Terry Prattchett said in Good Omens 'He had a sound system so expensive the amp was just a heavy black cube with a volume contol and nothing else' (iirc).
And no.. having a 'eject' button on a CD/DVD is not high functionality, it is a total waste of everybody's time.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
The best remote you'll ever find is those built by One For All with a JP1 connector. There's a large group who's hacked these remotes. By programming them from your PC they're able to control almost any device any possible way you can imagine. They're also very powerful without any PC connection and damn cheap, these remotes cost as much as a single DVD, not a DVD player.
Check out:
http://www.hifi-remote.com/ofa/index.shtml
You can buy a radioshack 15-1994 or Cinema 7 often for under $10 on ebay.
Best money I've ever spent,
Programmable through a computer (windows only, natch) you can also have it save the learned codes back to that computer as a backup.
Has a touch screen as well as hard buttons (touch screens suck, because you have to look at them to hit the button correctly, which detracts from the darkened room experience of movie watching)
I saw an earlier link to remotecentral, go check out their review, it's why I bought mine.
I purchased the Home Theater Master SL-9000 after much deliberation. I decided that I did NOT want a remote control with a big LCD screen because I'd probably break it :)
I know that at some point I'm going to sit on, drop, crush, or otherwise maime my remote control. I wanted to have one that could withstand some abuse. I eventually decided on the SL-9000, which turned out to be a great investment. EVERY SINGLE BUTTON (except light) on the thing is fully and individually programmable in every one of its EIGHT modes. That's a lot of IR codes -- By far the most flexible non-LCD remote out there.
-Sam