Slashdot Mirror
USB Remote Control
c13v3rm0nk3y writes "The Easy Zapper from Harmony is a universal A/V remote with a twist. Created to battle the complexities of operating home theatre systems, the Harmony operates a bit like a mobile telephone. There are few buttons to get you into trouble. The idea is that a single gesture is necessary to "watch a DVD", or "listen to music". It also acts as a TV Guide, as it can learn your local programming, and even tweak those choices based on a "zap" from the user. The interesting thing is that the unit itself has no remote "smarts". It learns eveything it has to by downloading code (va USB) and visiting the Harmony website. Support for Windows only right now, but there are plans for Mac OS, Linux, Playstation and XBox support. Very cool toy. The potential ability for this company to collect a lot of data on "typical" viewing habits is a bit scary. RemoteCentral.com has a review."
Sounds lovely, but now useful can it be? Sounds like nice thing to hack though.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
I suspect Sony will require FireWire for it to work with its products...
but how about a beow... ::ouch! stop hitting me!::
-- james
But how big is the code? Can it be handled over dialup?
Just another thing to teach my parents how to use. They need a button marked "set time on VCR."
-------------------------------------------
Saving baby carrots around the globe.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon. He will be missed :(
The "activity-based" model for this remote reminds me too much of the "Wizards" Microsoft is famous for... Nice in concept but more confusing in practice. This remote claims that when you choose an activity, for instance "Watch a DVD", everything will be turned on and set to the right function. How does the remote know the state of a device? When trying to toggle the DVD player on, it may inadvertently toggle it off. Then what do you do when you can't control individual functions, being left with mostly activity buttons?
looks cool, but, jeez, 200 bucks for a remote control?
I wonder what the Interface Hall of Shame would make of this one.
It's a real world model designed to function as a poorly designed virtual model, or so it seems. There doesn't seem to be any real advantage to hitting three or four buttons to do something when I can just hit {VCR}{1}{2}{ENTER} to do the same thing on any other universal. If you REALLY want this functionality, perhap you should use your Palm Pilot instead?
Never confuse volume with power.
First point is standard boilerplate privacy issue stuff. You bet your ass these guys are going to be collecting and tracking and selling your info. They'd be as stupid not to as they are to do it in the first place.
Second is, of course, the hack-factor. Can these things be hacked like the CueCat to disable the unique ID (if it has one) and will Harmony try to take everyone to court over it?
A programable remote!!! That is a new inovation, NOT! Sony, etc, have programable remotes that you can download custom macros into.
GET A CLUE! Mention Linux in the story and it get posted to the front page.
or is there no "record" button on this miracle of hi-tech?
Nah. When you realize that the remote controls work by modulating at 40kHz the pulsing of an Infrared Emitting Diode. The bandwidth just isn't there.
How about a USB for MY BUTT????
HAHAHA!
The potential ability for this company to collect a lot of data on "typical" viewing habits is a bit scary
Yeah, if someone knew I watched a lot of Junkyard Wars, Iron Chef, and Enterprise, why they could... er, they could, um...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
For example, when you are watching a video and the phone rings, simply press Mute. The Harmony will not only mute the sound, but will also pause the video.
..
Did I SAY I wanted to pause the video?
I'm sure this is configurable, but I really don't think this device is useful. Two years ago, my wife bought me one of those cool lcd-screen remotes (The Marantz), and while it's pretty cool to be able to set it up so one button will dim the lights, kick on the behind-the-tv light (ease the eye strain), turn the TV to input 2, kick on the DVD player and the Receiver -- I found that after a few months I started using my normal remotes again. It was just too much work to keep this configured correctly.
Now, for my wife who has no clue what inputs things should be on - this is okay. But most of my good remotes (with many buttons - which I like, and with tactile feedback - which I like even more) have the ability to learn the capabilities of a few other remote's functions - so my receiver's remote can control my TV.. I just set up a few of these remotes that I use most often to control a couple other devices that are associated with them, and I'm very happy.
My Marantz now sits in a closet.
I'd have a hard time dropping almost two bills on a remote. For that kind of money, if they're gonna know my viewing habits, I'd rather let Tivo or ReplayTV have my money.
There's an active discussion of these remotes at the JP1 Yahoo Group.
It learns eveything it has to by downloading code (va USB) and visiting the Harmony website.
This has "CueCat" written all over it!
Now hack away, hack away, hack away all!
------
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
I would have like to see some more information about the software used to program this thing. Specifically if it were capable of sending some of those special codes needed to make many DVD players into Multi Region players.
The review didn't go into very much depth on that side of it. Does anyone have one of these things?
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
Many devices actually support codes that the default remote will never send. The most common such codes are separate on/off codes.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
I think what all of us geeks need is a remote that can lower the volume on your wife (or for the less fortunate - inflatable significant other) when watching sci-fi or Tech TV.
Alot more complex that the KeySpan model http://www.keyspan.com/products/usb/remote/ that I use. But it sounds cool.
As computers move more onto the Stereo rack, these should be more popular.
Cheers,
This thing would cost twice as much as the DVD player it would control!
Forget that!
The potential ability for this company to collect a lot of data on "typical" viewing habits is a bit scary.
I'm not looking to get flamed here, but why are people so terrified of the collection of anonymous, aggregate, viewing statistics? Or for that matter even the collection of individual viewing data? Am I the only one tired of receiving douche coupons and Metamucil samples in the mail?
Exactly what are the negative aspects of more accurate advertising profiles? We might as well get used to advertising - it's here to stay. If I'm going to be inundated with junkmail - I'd at least prefer it to be potentially useful.
[I knew I should have worn my tinfoil hat today.]
Sorry, but this is another remote with poor design in my opinion.
The best remote I have seen was on the VideoGuide system. A central joystick, an independent rocker panel around the joystick, a button above the rocker panel and a button below it, with an index finger button on the underside (protected from accidental pressing by the sculpting of the remote.)
This should work with a set-top box with an ethernet, usb-b and as available jeni and upnp interfaces. Consumer devices with these interfaces would plug in, solving the "what state is the device in?" question. Additionally, the consumer devices would provide a software faceplate interface that the remote base station would use to provide an on-screen interface for the user to control.
If this were integrated into a A/V Reciever, the reciever could figure out what device was plugged into what port on the reciever and handle just about all of the setup for you. Otherwise you would have to tell the set-top box how your system was wired together.
Then again, that's just my opinion, your ideal is probably different.
-Rusty
You never know...
I got one of these beasts back in novenber. Despite some problems it does work as described, BUT the company has not been forthcomming with any documentation for the propriatary XML language or binaries that the device uses.
Harmony has time and again broken promises to release the full XML spec. I have even extrapolated non-documented xml features that have helped, but I should not have to.
As a simple remote with "activities" they are great, but if you are getting this to do complex programming steer clear.
http://www.remotecentral.com/
Good forums that have true user feedback.
What if my components are holed up in closet next to the TV? (Which they are)
How do they get the IR information into the closet?
I've got a 'smarthome' control screen that's X10 based and has an IR blaster for the closet. It's fully programmable and could probably do 90% of what this'll do, but I can't be bothered to PROGRAM it to do so.
This device claims to remove the programming acpects, but it OBVIOUSLY won't IR blast thru walls... (And NO, after spending $500 for the current setup, and $200 for this new setup, I'm not willing to loft ANOTHER $80 on an IR repeater.)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Is that too damned much to ask?!?
AMCGLTD.COM. Where cats, science fictio
...that this could be too successful. It seems like it's targeted almost at power users, most of who probably understand how to work their televisions already. Hell, my parents call me up when they need to shut the computer down. They're not going near a USB port... ever. Seems like it would be fun to play with, but just another piece of technology like any other: Too complex for the lay man, too easily broken for the family (leaving it crying for its old remote collection), but fun to mess with for the techie.
Of course, the flip side of that is if someone hacks the DNS for your cable modem and points it to a bogus website, you could get stuck with a Barney marathon. Unless you were *trying* to let your kids watch Barney (which should be classed as abuse), when it would kick out the Playboy Channel.
--Dave Rickey
This sounds exactly like the stupid "Internet keys" on my keyboard, and about as useful.
This product is dead before it starts. How come so many products that any idiot can tell you will fail still end up getting made? If they had taken half an hour to ask 5 people in a focus group if they would buy this product, then we would have to waste our time reading about it on slashdot.
One button to "watch a DVD?" I don't know about Windows, but on the Mac the DVD player starts when you stick the disc in, and you only have to hit the spacebar to watch it. And I know all the different OS's (even Linux) will auto-play audio CDs.
I just can't believe this shite. "Okay, guys, idea: a USB device with a bunch of buttons on it, and you use it to control the computer!" Uh, hello? It's a keyboard, they already make them.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Wizards have begun creeping into KDE as well. every release, a few more stupid wizards.
Pratchett was right here as well. The more wizards trying to do magick, the more chance of tentacled things from the Dungeon Dimensions appearing to eat your brain and leave you a useless vegetable (with MSCE certificate to prove it).
From my Autobiography - "Lifestyles of the Sad and Desperate"...
If they release a 50 button version, I might pick one up, but for now ill file this under useless...
pass: wewewe
There are many things to look at and click on..
I'm glad somebody appreciates my sense of humour :)
:)
:P
I don't see why you couldn't link them up by IR
-- james
ps yeah, go ahead, rip me up, moderators with sense of humour failure
where is the numeric keypad? I didn't see that option on the site.
thelikesofwhich.com
basically this means, it will send an "ON" command instead of a "toggle power" command.
2. It's got a help function if some equipment becomes out of sync.
It will ask you for example "Is the TV on?" so you can correct it, then everything is fine again.
=D
Grab the receiver remote. Press power, select input for DVD.
Put it down and grab the tv remote, press power, put it down.
Grab the DVD remote press play.
Phone Call
Grab the receiver remote. Press mute.
Grab the DVD remote, press pause.
Is soooooooooooooo much easier than just pressing [Watch a DVD]. Phone Call -- press [mute].
This is old technology, back in my day my father had all of this and MORE! It would change tv channels, answer the phone, and make popcorn. It was a wireless model, voice driven.. "Kenny! Bring me some coffee".
Sigh, I need kids of my own.
Since I'm part of the entertainment industry's nightmare: my entire entertainment system is contained in a drab generic beige box, that I slapped together for next to nothing out of spare parts lying around, housing a 1gig Athlon/ECS powered PC in my living room that functions as a VCR, DVD player, DivX;) player, .mp3 player, server to the rest of the home network, etc., etc., and run in its entirety by that silly $7 Packard Bell remote control that isn't listed on their web site.
I suspect quite a few of you have the same thing (or will very soon) in your living rooms too.
In this day & age, I certainly wouldn't fill up my
living space with countless expensive shiny black
"consumer" components when everything can now be done as well with a junk component PC, let alone pay $200 (!!!) for another expensive gadget just to try to run it all. $200 is certainly better spent on more divx storage space.
I probably ought to get a can of black Krylon (tm) & get rid of that horrible beige though....
Infrared sensing distance approximately 2 cm to 30 cm (1 inch to 12 inches).
:rollyes:
Why bother if you have to be within a foot of the receiver...
NEXT!
the remote is Harmony . . . so you got it backwards. it is a little confusing though, seems it should be the other way around.
I have a remote on My TV card and My Sound card, it's about time that someone designed a standard IR remote interface for the computer, with a sensible API then i could use one remote and controle evrything, on windows / linux/ freebsd. instead of having some crappy remotes that are useless.
whats more you should be able to connect it to the TV, HIFI , DVD player, Video Recorder, TV in the kitchen. I dream of the day when I can have one remote:- {{prefrable radio, digital and with a 128bit key that i can use to turn the overn off when i wan't a few extra pints down the pub}},
shit i've woken up again, never mind.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Most VCR's will stop if you leave them paused for more than 5 minutes. This switches you back to your tuner input at full volume. So Mute actually makes alot of sense.
Anyone else frightened that there was an entire website dedicated to the REMOTE CONTROl?!?!?!
This has been out and well-publicized for months! Why is it on slashdot? It's been onsale since about september of last year!
Everyone and their brother has reviewed it! It's been featured on remotecentral since february!
Is slashdot near death? Tell me something new, not something that has been beat to death elsewhere!
-a.e.mossberg
I have one and love it. A few people have mentioned it, so here's the link.
http://www.pronto.philips.com/
Once they found out you flip the channels or mute the tv (or go to pee, yes they have ways to know that!!!), you will spend the rest of your days in jail, watching daytime television with no pee brakes.
It's not a remote, but my reciever/dvd/tv are hooked up via s-link; and while I don't really notice it affecting much, the one feature I do appreciate is loading a DVD in the DVD player will automatically turn on the receiver, the TV, and set them up to the appropriate inputs.
Quite handy, because 99% of the time when I stick a DVD in the DVD player, that's exactly what I want to do, and navigating the silly Sony 2-way remote (I _hate_ complicated remotes.....) is such a pain.
-misao
All I ask is that remote controls be standardized to have included a 'locator'. Kinda like my wireless phone has. So I can find the damn thing when the dog hides it under the bed or the wife takes it to the laundry room with her!
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
The diffence is this is actually useful, whereas the Cue Cat wasn't. I got one of these and I love the fact that it has REAL buttons--most of the high end universals just have a touch-screen which is USELESS in the dark.
FWIW, another great combo is to use the Harmony to control your PC. It takes another little device, a PC Remote from Streamzap which comes with a USB infrared receiver so you can remote control your MP3s.
Lots of buttons on remotes are handy for a very good reason ... you don't have to look at the damn remote to do common things. I know where the buttons for guide, info, last, exit, volumne +/-, change +/- all are, which are the buttons used 99% of the time. Can't do that with this thing.
.... you get the picture. It's a wonder she doesn't get RMS in her neck from lookin at the TV and back at the remote.
So, I can lay back in my couch potato fashion, in the dark, pick up the remote, and feel my way through all the channels.
My girlfriend, on the other hand, takes FREAKIN FOREVER, because she has to look at the remote to hit the guide button, look up to make sure it came on, look down again to press page down, look up to see what is on, keep pressing down until something neat is on, look at the remote to press channel down, look up
It's apparent from the site that people who are not very techy will be able to use it either, so where is the audience?
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Remote sounds good, but how does it work in real life?
Um, because I'm an idiot =)
The potential ability for this company to collect a lot of data on "typical" viewing habits is a bit scary.
Yes, God forbid the networks find out everyone I know watches the now-cancelled Futurama while nobody I know watches Everybody Loves Raymond.
If every slashdot reader . . . allowed their viewing habits to be tracked in the aggrigate, Futurama would never be cancled.
Fox released their fall schedule yesterday and Futurama made it in. From the rest of the article you get the impression that with all the other cancellations (X-Files, Ally McBeal, Dark Angel) they needed to keep some of the marginal shows around just so people would remember what network they were watching.
Of course they failed to make the one change that might give the show a real shot at survival, putting it in the 8:30 timeslot instead of the 7:00 slot where it will yet again get bumber almost every week by NFL football.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope.
Chapter 13
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
For a lot less then then $199, to be exact $35,- you can pick up an Irman remote control sensor. It will recieve any infrared code and works with LIRC, an open source linux package.
DISCLAMER: I used to be associated with Evation.com
How many people out there invested in the now worthless Flatiron Partners? Fred Wilson and Jerry Colona should be prosecuted for theft! If you're gonna go after Enron execs, go after these two losers. If you're an inventor, avoid these two people.
Get off your blinkered, paternalistic asses,
I guess you have to be a PHD to understand such 'insightfull' comments
But read a story about any technical device and you'll find that readers are posting their review, because they bought it months ago...
Besides, when they post a story about the job marked, wouldn't it seem rather pompous if people start to write about their huge salaries?
With 200.000+ readers I'd tend to think so, as you don't see posts from 200.000 different individuals on each story...