Hi there,

I need a piece of advice.

I'm kinda confused over what custom control to choose.

My wife is sick and tired of the clutter of remotes on the table. I was going to buy something more functional and was stuck
There are at least 2 ways to make a control of my home theater more universal: a universal remote and a universal remote on PDA

The first seemed to me very complicated to set up and too expensive. Of course there exist custom installers...The universal remotes on PDAs are more attractive for me many reasons. But how can I overcome the problem a weak IR transmitter and inconvenient position of a PDA when I control my home theater?


Any opinions on the case?

buy a pronto or pronto pro both excellent products

Hi,

it depends on what you want from a remote.

There exist lots of touch screen universal remotes and universal remotes with hard-buttons. Some PDA remotes are of high quality, but not all of them compatible with the most popular PDAs.

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

Dear Don Stratton,

Thank you for such a detailed review! The information is really useful for me, both on universal remotes and Total Remote. But... to let my PDA be subjected to the treatment all my remotes seem to receive??? Dropped, fallen into the cracks of the sofa, sat on, misplaced, fondled by unclean fingers..oh the horror..

It depends on how you use your PDA :-)

By the way, what PDA have you got?

And would you or your wife prefer touchscreen remotes or universal remotes with hard-buttons?

I prefer touchscreen remotes. And I've got T|E. Why?

Me too :)) I mean I prefer touchscreen remotes. The last I bought was Philips Pronto TSU 3000. But the number of bugs I found.... awful.

The thought I was browsing i-net with, was 'I want something simpler and cheeper!'

If you don't want to always use your PDA as a remote , you can take, for example, NoviiRemote Blaster. The company released an SD card remote. You insert an SD card called Blaster and your PDA is a remote. Next minute you take it away and ut's your favourite organizer. I liked that principle :-)

Here some more information: [Link: remotecentral.com]

In any case I understand your wife - it's better to have one remote in your pocket than an enourmous number of them round you. I always had a wish to throw everything away :-)

Sorry,

the right link is

[Link: remotecentral.com]

If you want the ultimate wife pleaser, you'll spend a little more and buy a Pronto or similar.
Beeing a "real" remote it will function always with no flaws. Anything else is playing with fire.

But adapting the PDA to remote is more fun...you get to keep fiddling around and in the end, even though not perfect, you'll get a good result.
I use both systems, but would never dream of letting my wife use the PDA. When a button 1 out of 20 times doesn't work, you won't mind, but your wife will!

I was gonna go for a Pronto, but had an old IPAQ 3630 (pda) lying around.
It was cheaper for me to use that in conjunction with a Total Remote dongle and made my own CCF file.

The advantages for me where:
It is in colour.
Has loads of Memory
Has a calculator
Has my contacts
Has a Gameboy emulator installed. (Does anyone know if there is a version of Mame for PPC?).

It all came down to price V functionality.

If I did not already have the iPAQ I would have got a Pronto.

Cheers

Sean

Not to nitpick a satisfied customer... but do you really need contacts and a calculator on a remote control? I would infer that you are not using the iPaq solely for remote control, right?


WORD!

[Link: mameworld.net]

We will also be incorporating the latest build of the MAME game engine in the next version of Total Remote.






Just kidding. ;)


--Don

So, if I wnat the ultimate wife entertainer and soother I should give her a PDA for her to have a lot of fun when installing it... :-) It seems a good idea! If, for example, Novii Blaster is as good and easy to set up as I have read here, my wife can even like it! :-)



What software did you use?

I loathe having my five remote controls sitting on the couch .

Thank you for the link. Could you tell me what control do you prefer?

Good idea! Though I even found an installer for Pronto I think it would cheaper for me to use my Tungsten. (and I will buy a smartphone instead :-) )
So, Novii Blaster you say? Any other thoughts on the case?