So after months of programming and waiting and fiddling and learning, I finally had my iPronto to the point where it was only a minor disappointment and worked to control most of my home theatre equipment with minimal aggrevation.

Then, last night, my wife managed to accidentally dump and ENTIRE glass of cabernet right onto the unit! Of course it died on the spot. NOTHING worked.

I immediately took the unit into the kitchen to begin surgery and try a thorough sopping and drying after as much disassembly as I could manage. After all of this and about an hour or so in the warming drawer on low, the unit now starts up, immediately goes into a "Manual Configuration" screen. None of the hard buttons or touch screen are responsive to anything. It's dead.

So endeth my iPronto journey. I'm almost glad that it is dead. Now I don't have to hold my breath waiting for substandard firmware releases and I'll never again have to look forward to resetting the time zone on my iPronto to eastern time after it resets itself to GMT every night during the EPG download. I'll never again have to struggle and press "Ctrl-D" over and over and over and over again trying to get my PC and my iPronto to communicate with each other. "Ding - dong the witch is DEAD..."

I'm just going to go get a Crestron. Can anyone point me in the right direction for a good dealer? I just had an $1,800 lesson in "you get what you pay for". I wish all of you iPronto owners who have not yet thrown up your hands and quit a sincere good luck! I get the feeling that this device will never live up to the hype or your expectations.

I will also at this point never get involved with any other Philips product and will relay this story to anyone contemplating the purchase of any type of home electronics equipment. While their other products may be flawless and represent a good value for the cost, I feel that they stole $1,800 from me and I now pledge to do everything that I can to steer business away from them.

If you got this far, thanks for reading my rant. I hope the Philips people read this message board. I hope my message tips the balance for them to deliver on their promises to the rest of you folks.

See ya,

Dave.
[email protected]

Sorry to here that you didnt get out sooner, at least now the aggrevation is over.I work with a lot of dealers and custom installers in my job and I seize every opportunity I get to discredit Phillips and the iPronto. They didnt get me with the cost of the pronto but they did cost me about 40 hours of labor that I couldnt charge for which is worth about 2000 dollars.

Well, if you look at it from a labor perspective, I can't imagine how many hours I had into it. I programmed custom .bmp's for the local network affiliates as well as all of the other channels on the cable. Special macros for the handful of HDTV channels that I could get. It's too painful to remember.

After a casual discussion with my dealer, he is going to hook me up with an MX-700 today. And we're going to start looking at what an AMX system might look like (and cost) for my installation.

Thanks for the note.

Dave.

Dave,


I sympathize with your loss, but when I read your post I simply couldn't suppress a smile. It's just so ironic that the internal name of the original Pronto was 'Cabernet'...

Regards,

Jan

Jan, wow! Long long, long-long-long LONG time no see!

Hi Daniel,

Yep, it sure has been a very long time. As a matter of fact, we never did really 'see' each other, did we? It would be nice to once meet in real life. Come to think of it, I have been very close in September last year, when my family and I enjoyed a 5-week road trip from Cupertino (CA) to New York and we made a brief stop in Toronto. My kids had great fun jumping around on the transparent floor in the CN tower. My wife and I were a little more cautious...

I had a chance to play with an iPronto for a bit, which triggered me to have a look around your site again. I noticed quite a few disgruntled owners, but I'm not going to share my views ;-) I had too much trouble already, starting with the original Pronto's easter egg. That did get me some attention from people higher in the company's hierarchy, but I have not been able to capitalize on that yet, and it's most likely too late by now...

I have not actually used a Pronto (other than the iPronto) for a long time. Mine have been in storage since being packed for our move back to Europe almost a year ago. I hope we'll soon be able to move into our new home, fully prepared for a wired network, so I can set up our HT and plenty of screens throughout the house. I don't quite know what to do with them yet, but I just think the whole idea is cool...

Anyway, it's good to hear from you again.

Regards,

Jan

You probably should have looked me up in the phone book! I'm not far at all from Toronto. Otherwise, you should go to CEDIA or CES so that we can meet there. :-)

At least the easter egg situation was eventually worked out - and even expanded on with the ProntoPro. I also think that you might be pleased to hear that the iPronto programmers continued your tradition. :-)

spill the beans :-) what is it and how do you get there

Hi Jan,

It's Eric, we met in Chicago a few years ago, afterwards I was able to do much work with Marantz getting their version of the Pronto to market (using ideas that you and I discussed during that brief impromptu meeting). I was very dissapointed to work with Philips but not with you. Currently I am living in California, up in Sebastopol and would love to buy you lunch or dinner and trade stories. I do get down to Cupertino every once in a while, so give me a call.

Best Regards,

-Eric

Eric Johnson
www.hometheaterpro.com

Phone 1-800-247-7001

Hi Eric,

I do remember our meeting in Chicago. It was the first time I met people who actually bought a product I worked on as a developer. I often miss that direct contact with end users, now that I'm back in research.

Anyway, the road trip from Cupertino to New York was the first part of our trip from the Bay Area, where we lived for over 6 years, to Europe. I now live near Eindhoven in The Netherlands. So, thanks for the offer, but considering the distance, I can't promise I'll accept it any time soon...

Regards,

Jan