Despite the fact that I am the Senior Engineer and Product Manager for Total Remote...

[Link: griffintechnology.com]

... I would still caution you to very carefully assess your remote control needs. There are some fairly inexpensive universal remotes with learning capability and a small LCD display (some even have a small touchscreen) that offer a high degree of integration and automation of your system controls, perhaps a small degree of user configurability by changing button labels on the LCD screen, and all the traditional benefits of "real" remote controls, namely lots of hardware buttons that are unambiguously labeled and battery-powered operation that is economical and reliable (in the respect that it is easier to swap out a couple of AAA batteries than deal with a dead LiIon pack on a PPC).

PPC apps such as Total Remote offer a nigh-unlimited level of customization and optimization; which is great for those who wish to take advantage of the high-end functions but frankly pretty intimidating and brutal for those who aren't deeply into Pocket PCs, infrared remotes and home theater systems (like my wife). If my wife were in charge of our home theater, I would suggest she get a nice display remote for less than $100. Since _I_ am in charge, I use Total Remote, and the reason it works well for my wife is I have done a lot of work to make it ridicuously simple to use thanks to activity-based macros like "Turn on everything and watch a DVD" or "Reconfigure DVD for optical or coax S/PDIF audio". Sure, all the remote functions are duplicated on typical control screens so a power-user can do everything manually, but thanks to the activity-based macros my wife never needs to know how it all works behind the scenes. It could be argued that all of this can be done on higher-end display remotes, but my point is I think the relative limits placed on the user of a consumer-oriented hardware remote makes it much easier for a more casual user to configure their remote to suit their needs. PPC software may offer an almost unlimited amount of configuration options, but at the cost of increased complexity and a higher learning curve.

That doesn't even touch on the fact that a hardware remote is MEANT to be a remote, while apps that turn Pocket PCs into remotes are what I might term a very complicated hack that cannot gurantee 100% compatibility with all possible types of hardware. A very few models of iPaq have hardware that make them as compatible as possible, and several brands of Pocket PCs have such powerful IrDA ports that even though IrDA is theoretically not quite the right standard to use it can work remarkably well for consumer remote control. Most of the Pocket PC remote control apps allow for the use of a higher-powered IR transmitter than the IrDA port, but they all suffer from a variety of compatibility problems that will always limit their use (and yes, this includes the CF cards used by TVRC and UltraMote, as well as my own beloved Total Remote transmitter module).

Think it over very carefully. Then, if you decide to go PPC, try Total Remote. ;)


--Don