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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."
But a smart phone has limited "hard" buttons. .. and as nice as touch screens are.. it's hard to operate them lying in bed through one half-open eye.
Personally I`m waiting for voice recognition to become practical. I think that's more the future of how we control our devices.
I feel you, man. It sucks to post these non-stories, but it's slim picking and what you gonna do?
That's it, right?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
There are a lot of people that won't buy a smart phone to operate all their devices.
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 [...]."
While the screwdriver has served humanity with distinction, its days are numbered, and your hammer is to blame. Whether you want to control your nails, there's probably a solution using your hammer. Try as it might, the screwdriver simply can't hammer the nails the way the hammer can -- it's a lot easier to put the screwdriver's abilities in the hammer than vice versa.
If I want to change the channel on my TV I'm not going to muck around with the 'remote' app on my smartphone. I'm going to pick up an actual remote and press the button.
Smartphones are great for a lot of things, but proper remote controls have a set of fixed, tactile buttons that respond instantly. Versatility isn't worth much if it's a pain to use.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
If there was a way to mod articles, I'd mod this -1 Troll and -1 Flamebait.
The universal remote has its uses, the smartphone has its own, and, last I checked:
Just because it has less use for presentations doesn't mean that it's dying. If anything, other uses may be found for it, including presentations.
Also, why replace a $20 item (or even less) with a $200 item (or even more) if all you're going to do is watch TV and DVDs with it? If the universal remote is truly dying, then the big phone companies have won the war of overconsumption: sell a product that will be obsolete in two years, make it have tons of uses, and have the buyer depend more and more on it such that s/he deems it absolutely necessary and buys it again and again as newer versions come out with even more feature creep, while making everyone pay the full price for all the features despite many of the buyers not using even an eighth of them.
I'd rather keep that remote, thanks. Mine has lasted around... 10 years now?
Yes, my wife would love it if every time I left the house she was stuck watching Top Gear repeats all day because my phone was the only thing that controlled the TV.
Harmony FTW.
It's all fun and games until a 200' robot dinosaur shows up and trashes Neo-Tokyo... Again
I don't remember having to sign a contract, nor pay a monthly fee to use a universal remote,or better yet a "learning" remote. Those lists of manufacturers + models for your TV set/stereo/etc always seem to list all the models in the world..except the one you bought. Somehow I got lucky with my Advent home entertainment center, where I can use my Comcast remote to move up/down the volume. Felt a small sense of accomplishment since now I can now control everything with that remote, save for the video game consoles + VCR.
Now I'm going to need a $300.00 "smartphone" to turn on my TV, radio etc? One which will be reporting on everything I do and where I do it? (Guess that's what really makes it smart-never mind if they don't now, they will, they will. Fuck this bullcrap. George Orwell must be spinning in his grave at relativistic speeds.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
There's no way a cell phone can replace the simplicity and multi-device support of a good universal remote. These remotes are actually _designed_ for their function, whereas a phone is designed for, you know, taking calls and running a few apps.
- You dont pay a monthly fee to use a remote control
- Who wants to pay for multiple goddamn cell phones that work as remotes, so if you are gone your visitors or spouse can watch tv? Be srsly
- Good remotes are designed to be simple for the technologically inept. You select a simple action like "Watch TV" "Watch DVD" "Play Game" which are customizable and switch everything on or off as needed. If there are errors, the help button will resolve the issues in a simple way your grandma can figure out
This is akin to taking a simple, small tool and trying to replace it with a monolithic "do everything" solution. It would be overly complex and would fail, fail, fail.
How are these terrible articles getting through? Modding queue with a hangover, are we?
for a phone that's smart enough to quit dropping the damn calls. That's the only smart phone I'm interested in owning.
The person who wrote this article has clearly never used a Logitech Harmony remote. Best remote I've ever owned.
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
Phones are for PHONING!!!!! not texting, not taking pictures, nor playing mp3s, nor controlling radio controlled cars or anything else..
I hate having to learn to use my new nokias as it is, without piling in more crap.
Whatever happened to "Do one job and do it well".. Seems nowadays it's lets cram as much crap into something that half works.
I'm using my phone/out of the house and someone else (sat the 13 year old kid) wants to watch a DVD?
Or does everyone need a smart phone as opposed to one $20 remote on the coffee table?
The PS3 may be a nice BlueRay player but it does not nicely work together with the rest of appliances: it's remote is bluetooth.
Is there a universal remote which includes a bluetooth module for the PS3?
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
THAT is the future. No faffing about with smartphonesâ"one remote controls one machine.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
Whoever wrote that has not set up a TV for a relative (or themselves in the future ) in an "Assisted living Facility".
Channel change, on/off and volume are at the edge (and sometimes beyound ) the capabilities of these people.
These are people who have trouble telling if it's 3:00 pm or am (the phone calls in the night tell me that).
Days of the week and date are nebulous concepts.
Something as complicated as a cell phone is just a paper weight.
NB: Small remotes also disappear. They don't remember where they put them.
With projects like the JP1 forum turning universal remotes into the Swiss army knife of the 21st century I hardly think the will meet their technological demise any time soon. I would rather bet my $0.02 that the killer device control app for smartphones will be remote interaction at an arbitrary distance, much like the remote DVR control applications now entering the market.
I think they are missing the point in saying that the universal remote's days are numbered. Smartphones just allow another way to do the same thing, and not always better. Currently, I use my desktop when im sitting at the pc, an ir remote when not, and an ipaq when roaming around the house. All three have different situation where they are better than others so to say one will hail the death of the other is missing the point that more options are available in general. I use linuxMCE for all my home AV needs and it allows me to use all three with the same interface. If anything I think the end result of smartphones being used more and more is less lost remotes.
-those people who tell you not to take chances, they are all missing what lifes' all about-
Why can't I click a button on the TV to make my remote beep when I can't find it. Maybe I should patent that.
The universe remote will never die. It costs at least $200 for a "smart phone" like an iPhone or a Google android, and those smart phones not as good for TV surfing as the $15 remote you get from Walmart. The buttons on the remote are the product of 30 years of evolutionary design, the user interfaces on set top boxes are not -that- bad, and you don't have to worry about hackers. By the time you jizz your finger into getting your smart appliance into channel changing mode, I can reach down from the couch, onto the floor, pick the remote up and change the channel.
Oh, and by the way, the batteries on my remote last way longer than your smart phone batteries.
This is my sig.
Having worked with Universal Remote, RTI, and Crestron products, I know what a "high-end" remote should do. These guys make very flexible remotes, but they cost a ton of money.
Logitech's Harmony series remotes come VERY close, for a fraction of the cost. Programming is not very difficult, and I've yet to find a AV component that can not be controlled by these remotes.
If you need to control lighting, HVAC, and other home automation stuff, RTI and Crestron are your best bet (bring your checkbook). But if you only need to control a modest Home Theater system, take a look at the Harmony remotes.
As far as smartphones go - who is going to leave their smartphone home so the babysitter, or kids can watch TV?
-ted
Nope. Sorry - I can't see it.
As soon as you said this (for argument's sake, let's say a 24" iMac.) your argument was blown.
For every "perfect solution" there will always be a competing product or a competing standard and they're not going to play nice. Its not even in the best interests of the electronics companies to provide a one size fits all solution (which is technically feasible now). They need pricing points and upgrade paths to continue generating profit.
They need built in redundancy to ensure an ongoing market. And most consumers (not all, but most) end up with a rag-tag mix of equipment and configurations, based on need and willingness to fork out cash.
Like LAN networks, noone has an identical system when it comes to media solutions in the home - and as a result, there will always be a market for tools that aid in bringing them all together.
If you had the faintest idea of the network requirements to do that, you would understand why broadcast TV (and radio) are going to be around for a long, long time.
Today, people can pretend that broadcast radio might die because they can stream content to their phone. And as long as they can do this, they think "this must be what the future looks like". It doesn't, it won't and as soon as 10-20 people in their physical area try to do the same thing they will discover the truth.
The bandwidth requirements of feeding individuals their own streams at 1080i (or even 720i) would require pretty much dedicated fiber home-to-provider. No, that doesn't exist. You can get fiber to a local node that is dedicated but then you are competing with your neighbors for bandwidth on a shared resource. And that shared resource does not have anywhere near the aggregate capacity to handle the sum of the fiber coming in to it.
When will it? Probably never. Dreaming that broadcast will end when it does is fine, but keep in mind someone has to justify the costs. A local node may serve 1000 homes. Getting fiber that will support 20MB/sec is no problem but getting a channel from the local node that will support 20Gb/sec is another proposition entirely. And at the head end where 100 of those 20Gb/sec fibers come together to compete with the incoming bandwidth now ups that requirement to 2Tb/sec.
2Tb/sec? And that is merely a small town with 100,000 homes.
Broadcast TV is going to be around for a long, long time. As will broadcast radio. The bandwidth requirements of a broadcast are so incredibly modest compared with individual streams that it is a no-brainer for anyone.
Will the bandwidth exist someday? Maybe. Will it be used to replace broadcasting? Doubtful. There will be some other use for it which will once again mean broadcast content is the only practical way to do it.
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)
So is mine when I am at work, but while I am home watching TV, nobody is paying me.
It takes at most, 3 seconds to perform most actions on a TV, allowing me to change channels 20 times per minute. The smartphone takes about 1 second to perform an action. Thanks to this, it is now possible watch 3 times less tv in the same amount of time.
So 6 K (Keys) should be enough for anybody?
No existe.
I think voice recognition is more the future of how we control our devices.
Please leave me out of your future. Few things make me more angry than calling a support number and getting a menu where I'm required to speak to the computer.
If I have to deal with a computer, at least give me the choices and let me press a damn button. Don't make me guess the right keyword, especially not in earshot of my officemates.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I call this the Swiss Army Knife Fallacy. It's like thinking that screwdrivers, scissors, and toothpicks are all going to vanish because a swiss army knife can do all of those things.
Just as you might carry a swiss army knife in your pocket, smartphones are handy as a portable solution when you are out and about. But when I'm at home and I need to tighten a screw, I don't dig in my pocket for my swiss army knife; I reach into my toolbox and get a dedicated screwdriver that is designed to do just that one task as well as possible, instead of being adequate at multiple tasks.
When I'm using my entertainment center, I want a remote that is ideally adapted to that one task. I don't need it to browse the web, or answer the phone; I've got devices optimized for those particular uses ready to hand in my home. For example, touch screens are great for general purpose devices that have to serve many functions. But when I want to adjust the volume on my TV set, I want a device with fixed, physical buttons with distinctive shapes that I can feel in the dark.
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...