I have followed several forums over the years and never commented. This one attracted my interest for two reasons: first it is an all to common occurrence in this and many industries, second the comments have been interesting and progressed predictably.

I would like to ask a few questions of the frustrated owner of the MX-3000 and also make a couple of comments. First I would like to say that I have programmed a few remotes and controls systems over the years including the URC MX-3000. The MX-3000 is a very capable and well-designed remote.

First question, how much time did you spend communicating your needs, wants and desires to the individual or company programming your control?

Second, are you confident that your desired results were clearly communicated and understood?

Third, were there any options discussed with the programming individual or company? What did you do with them?

Fourth, did the scope of the programming change at anytime in this process?

Finally, what level of trust was developed between yourself and the individual or company and has that level of trust been eroded away? If the level of trust does not exist, I suggest cut and run. If not a meeting should be arranged

There have been many good comments in this thread. In particular, I appreciate tweeterguy’s comment and reply; it demonstrates how easily miscommunication can derail plans. With the information provided he was quick to provide his ‘average’ charge to program the control. However, when provided just a little more information he honestly and fairly clarified his statement. It is reasonably to assume that the more information provided about this programming situation would have an affect on the opinions.

There are many variables involved in the area of programming including but not limited to; the equipment used, the availability of discrete codes, how the equipment is hooked together, the desired look and ‘feel’ of the remote, balancing the desires for simplicity with wishes for more features. The process of programming is not a tangible product, only when the desired outcome is achieved does it provide any fundamental value.

It seems to me that there are two lines of thought in this forum. Several remotes would provide more convenience, functionality and flexibility; drawback: additional hardware expense and slightly more programming expense. Programming a multi-system, multi-user single remote provides a high amount of single-location control and equally amount of ‘cool’ factor while saving on hardware cost; drawback; extended programming time issues due to the complexities and reduced user simplicity.

This issue of what is a fair hourly labor rate is another matter. In New Your City, San Francisco and Boston $95 an hour would be a bargain. In many other areas of the country it would be considered very expensive.

I would like to comment concerning programming a MX-3000 to control a 12-zone system. While it is impressive, for many multi-zone systems the actual programming is comparatively simple. Creating the pages and control for the first zone consumes the majority of time. Duplicating these pages for the additional zones, creating a master page and macros is very basic.