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Universal Remote's Days Are Numbered
theodp writes "While the universal remote has served humanity with distinction, its days are numbered, and your smartphone is to blame. Whether you want to control your music, your television or your PowerPoint presentation, there's probably a solution using your phone. Try as it might, the universal remote simply can't navigate the digital world the way the smartphone can — it's a lot easier to put the remote's abilities in the smartphone than vice versa."
I don't know how it works in the US, but in Europe (or at least where I live) there are 348576384756876 different, conflicting coding standards for infrared messages, so the only real place for your Universal Remote is in the trash can.
Not that I condone using phones for remote control...
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
The Universal Remote can be programmed with the signal used in Laser Tag games and is area-effect. This allows you to blast vast areas far more effectively than the pistol they supply you with. The SmartPhone cannot do this, no matter what you do.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
are more likely to be found near a tv instead of in the pocket of the owner
That seems to me to be a very important issue that might not occur to people quickly. What if someone else is in my house and wants to watch TV? Do I have to leave my cell phone with them? Or do they have to reprogram their phones?
It's very convenient to have a simple, cheap, dedicated device to serve a single purpose. It can just sit there, ready to fulfill its duty.
It would suck, because the IR port on a standard "smartphone" is just too weak and focused. The Harmony Remote works because it's equipped with the equivalent of IR "blasters" - it fires extremely powerful IR bursts in every direction that remotely resembles "in front of the remote".
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
I have to disagree. I spent 50 bucks for a bluetooth keyboard, and I have an old Gyration 3D RF mouse which at the time was $79 bucks. The mouse is a pain in the arse and often sends the mouse scurring in some random direction because it's 'level' sensor sucks or whatnot. I tried a touchpad bluetooth mouse I read about on /. but the range was horrible and my dog eventually ate it.
I just bought an app based on TFA ;) I had no idea folks were writing WiFi apps to control HTPC's. All I can say is it's about time!
For 3.99 I now have a full remote keyboard and touchpad mouse that seems to work VERY well. I could care less about charging as I only need the mouse or keyboard to open a video or whatnot. A few seconds of use will not add any substantial 'drain' to my iPhone. It also appears to close the app when I closed the remote software as it asked me to re-authenticate each time I launched it until I told it to save my password.
For those that are interested, I went with "Zemote" for $3.99. Much cheaper than the $24 dollar app mentioned in TFA. It comes with basic paring security (password over WiFi on a custom port), keyboard, touchpad mouse functionality or tilt mouse functionality..whichever you prefer, and a media remote for Win Media Center, WMP, VLC, or GOM.
With effective use of the vibrate function, it can replace your spouse as well.
At the risk of walking into a trap here, I think the reference was a (fairly tenuous) reference to the famous 640K is enough for anyone remark that was never actually made...