I purchased one of these because I thought it would be a nice bedroom remote for my wife, and potentially, for small basic setups.

I went through the wizard fairly quickly. My equipment for the test was fairly straightforward: Fujitsu monitor, Scientific Atlanta 8300HD, Denon receiver and DVD player. When I downloaded the file into the 810, I was thinking that I would probably only have to tweak a few things. To my dismay, nothing worked. I mean NOTHING. Nothing powered on or off, no change of input, no volume control, no channel functions. Wait-I stand corrected, when I tried one of the activity macros, it changed one of the stretch modes of my plasma (definitely undesirable). Also, when I tried to power off, one time it put my Denon receiver into Pure Direct mode. I have not gotten the bitter taste out of my mouth yet to attempt to return to the troubleshooting segment of the wizard.

I realize this product was just released, and probably needs some time to work out the kinks...but this seems ridiculous to me. I've programmed numerous Prontos, MX-3000's, 950's, 900's, and RTI. I thought this wizard thing would be like reading a picture book to me.

I'm gonna keep the 900 in the mix, as it's not currently going away, by any stretch of the means. Plus it's easier to upsell to the mx-980 from a 900, as the differences are much more obvious from the 900 to the 950. The MX810 will not be sold in my store unless they get some real software for it.

Bryan Levy's Post #8 very accurately describes my own nightmarish experience with the MX-810 software. I've been a professional A/V remote programmer for 15 years and COULD NOT complete a successful MX-810 program in my 8 hour marathon attempt. If "DEVICE" was selected, all the codes worked perfectly. If ACTIVITY was selected the codes seemed to work each assigned device but they were totally scrambled. The power on and power off macros did not work at all. When I assigned discrete ON / OFF codes to a device, the remote would not save that information. I encountered many communication problems between the remote and my PC. Once, the remote locked up during download and the only way I could fix it was to remove the remote's battery for a second to reboot it. Ah... brings back Pronto nightmares.

This is such a huge disappointment because the remote's physical design is "The Best Ergonomic Design" I've seen to date. We could sell hundreds of these remotes if the programming software was the normal, advanced URC programming we all love.

The white letters on black buttons are the easiest to see. Fantastic!
The silver outlines around the control groups make operation easy to understand.
Using the word ACTIVITIES rather than WATCH is brilliant. I have always wondered what the "engineers" were thinking that gave us the LISTEN and WATCH buttons. Am I supposed to LISTEN or WATCH my lights dim or my blinds go up an down? By the way, according to the photo of the upcoming MX-980 at this address...

[Link: cepro.com]

our soon to be released "dream remote" has the (ouch) LISTEN and WATCH buttons!

Back to the MX-810...
The perfectly placed and very large skip - and skip + buttons are excellent for skipping commercials with the Dish DVR. These are probably the most important buttons on the remote control. SUGGESTION: print Skip - and Skip + on the buttons and put a hard DVR button between the two skip buttons so we can easily get to our recorded programs.
The "easily replaceable" Lithium Ion rechargeable battery is fantastic (Pronto TSU9600 designers...did you read the last line?)

SIDELINE... In case you have not heard, your customers (or you) have to send their TSU9600s back to Phillips every time their Li battery needs to be replaced. Brilliant! Perhaps Phillips owns stock in UPS :) What a nightmare for us.

Thank you, URC, for giving us an easily replaceable Li battery.
The battery is also rugged (no hanging wires to break off (MX3000)) and easy to handle.

MX-810 again...
The fact that the MX-810 can run indefinitely because the power supply cord plugs directly into the remote is a HUGE BONUS because it will make our non-stop TV-watching addicts very happy. If plugged in, their remote will never "die".
The fantastic color display puts this remote at the very top of the "easy to see" list.
The remote is very light weight which is another huge plus.
The hard button "soft click" feedback is classy and not at all annoying.
The audible beeps are very clean sounding... not your typical, horrible, cheep screech.
Adjustable beep volume = excellent.
Adjustable color screen brightness = excellent
Tilt switch on/off button = excellent

URC managers have been telling us in these forums that the upcoming MX-980 is "The Remote" that will satisfy the highly skilled programmers among us. Perhaps it will, in terms of software, but I personally feel, as a past Human Factors Engineer for Northrop Grumman, that the physical design of the MX-810 is FAR SUPERIOR to the upcoming MX-980 design.

In fact, I love the physical design of the MX-810 so much that I am going to keep it, even though I cannot get it to work anything. I just love looking at it, holding it in my hand and dreaming about how great life would be if I could one day program it successfully.

URC, we love you. My advice is to scrap the outdated looking, poorly laid out MX-980 and put it's software into the magnificent MX-810. If you do, you won't be able to supply the World with enough of them. I Guarantee it.

I hope you buy it dinner first ;).


Agreed w/ most everything you said except the love part... maybe a Frank Barone love.
The MX980 was stuck onto an MX950 body to save costs. A record button in addition to the activity/device vs. watch/listen issue are ways to improve the 980.

They need to make the remotes DVR based.

Actually the case of the 980 is entirely different from the 950. They look similar in photos, but they share no parts whatsoever. The 980 is slightly wider and shorter than the 950 to address installer requests about the form factor.

And believe it or not, the fact that there's no hard record button was also in response to installer comments telling us that most of their DVR customers select recordings from the onscreen guide instead of using the record button. We're starting to hear more comments going the other way now, and that's how the 810 ended up with a hard record button.

hard record plus a DVR hard button are huge! I second the concept of locating it between the new skip+/- buttons.

I did not notice the width difference. So you are saying that using a simila case and buttons was actually not that big a deal in the production of these units?

That stinks that your feedback from installers lead you the wrong way in remote design. That should be looked at and I know it currently is.

The Watch and Listen was not from feedback was it?

If URC wants the "wizard" programming model so badly so they can compete with Harmony, fine. But allow it to be programmed by either the wizard or the normal editor.

Reminds me of not buying a new car in the first model year...

o yes
total bs

FWIW, having a fixed REC button and color graphics means nothing to me until it fits into the normal programming model of the rest of my line....I will not recommend, sell or include these in a system until the programming matches the other MX series. That's my official feedback. If the programming was the same as the others I would give it a chance in a heart beat. Leave Harmony programming for the geek squad.

Joe-CI, I took your advice and “bought the MX810 dinner.” After a lovely evening out, we became better acquainted and began what I would call a very promising relationship.

All kidding aside, Eric Johnson from URC took the time to walk me through some MX810 programming tricks using the Universal Browser which has been included in the Wizard software. The Universal Browser gave me the tools I needed to complete a successful MX810 program.

As I predicted, the daily users of my personal home theater system, my wife and son, were able to pick up the 810 and start using it successfully with absolutely NO instructions from me. That’s the test of a truly great remote control… no instructions needed!

My wife and son have used every remote I’ve sold in the last 15 years and their comments were that this remote (MX810) was their favorite by far.

I’ve placed an order for more MX810 remotes from AVAD and know they will be a huge success.

I know that many of you will run into the same programming difficulties I had so I recommend that you contact URC for a 30-45 minute training session to learn the advanced programming methods that will enable you to complete successful 810 programs.

Thanks again, URC for the best technical support in the industry and for designing the best 1-hand remote control to date.

Why not just make the Center Select button a push-and-hold RECORD botton?

It works, but you want the remote as simple as possible so any random person picking it up could use it.

Your workaround is one that needs to be memorized.

Get some nailpolish and paint it red...