I am really thinking very hard about getting the Pronto, as I am not all that happy with my Sony RM-AV 2000. I am begining to wish that I had saved my $110 towards the Pronto. Not a bad remote, just kinda big and not customizable. (I would really like to buy a good used Pronto if possible. Hint Hint!!!)
Back to my questions....
Has anyone heard if there will be a color screen in Pronto's future? Just curious. I would really hate to spend the $350 for a black/grey screen if color is on the way within the next year of so. Can you imagine the cool screen possibilities?
Also, to those of you that aren't independently wealthy.. (and to those whom $350
'might'and I mean 'might', be better spent on say... day care, ugh!)...
Is the Pronto worth the money? Truly? Can you justify it now that you have owned for a while? Do you think that you will be happy with it for years (decades) to come? I know that it is a great plaything as well as a great and functional remote, but is it worth it to someone with a moderate home theatre? I mean no disrespect to anyone, just want to hear from those in my position that had really pondered the idea of the Pronto before buying, due to financial and other prudence reasons, and to see if they are glad that they did. I am truly jealous of all of you that already have it!
Thanks,
Sean

Thanks,
Sean

Sean, I was in the same position you were in, when it came time to decide what to do.

I got the mandate from my wife to clean up the clutter of remotes on the coffeetable, so I started researching universal remotes. Most seemed to be even more complex than the ones we have already. So I looked at touchscreens. I was interested in the HK/Microsoft at first, but the nicer screen on the Pronto made the decision.

I found a great deal at AV Science up in Rochester, NY and had excellent service from them.

I used the Prontoedit software to program it with no problems. You know, it's become like a hobby to incorporate different equipment, etc. I've even added the X10 remote lighting controls in my home and run them from the Pronto. Everything was cheap and works great.

I enjoy it as much now as I did when I bought it, my wife can work the home theater setup easily and there's a great crowd of fellow users here and elsewhere (Jack!) that will pitch in and help if you have a question.

No idea about color, except that color is a power hog for battery powered devices, so that might be a future enhancement.

Sean,

Yes it's worth it! I saved for 5 months and got one over a DVD. I look at it as a TH component! It replaces all remotes and I can't see why I will replace it.

Yes color would be nice, and eat battery life. If I got a Sony reciever there might be some problems. Seems like Sony recievers have to "communicate" with the remote. But I've a armon Kardon AVR-80 mkII and don't see that getting replaced soon.

Mostly I will always have this BECAUSE everyone who comes over can EASLIY use the TH. Even my girlfriend's stoner dad can turn on the system and get to whatever channel by finding the logo. Sweet Jesus if the Pronto were just in Best Buy for demos EVERYONE would have one.

I say save up an do it. I can't remeber the last person who gave up his pronto for another sub $1000 learning remote. It just works.

Ian

PS I've gotten over 6 months on the AA alkalines and still going. So the recharging battery pack isn't really a money saver IMHO.

Sean,

Right now you can buy a Pronto without recharging dock for $269 with free 2ND day shipping from autotoys.com. I just bought mine last week from them. I already had rechargeable batteries so do not need the recharging dock. Hope this will ease your budget a bit.

Sean,
I just bought a Pronto a couple weeks ago from Cartronix, paying $329 for the remote and charger, a special bundled price that I don't think is available anymore. I taught the Pronto the codes for most of my equipment, and I have done some *very* minor mods on the screens with ProntoEdit. I think it shows a whole lot of promise to simplify my system and eliminate the usability gripes I've heard from my wife ever since buying a DVD player forced me to route video through the A/V receiver.

My only problem is a lack of time to customize the Pronto. (Two little kiddies running around the house keep me busy enough.) For now, I'm still drawing state diagrams on a legal pad. I plan to eventually throw out the entire standard configuration. I have an idea in my head as to how I want it all to work, and I happened across a terrific web site ([Link: members.aye.net]) of a fellow who has done something very similar to what I plan to do. He has lots of very detailed information on what he did, great tutorial stuff for Pronto newbies like me.

Daniel's site here is also terrific. This is where I learned about Pronto and became convinced to try one. I have downloaded a few dozen CCFs from the files area here. I plan to liberally borrow ideas from them in building my own system. The discussion threads have been very valuable.

I would not recommend AutoToys. I looked at them before buying my Pronto, as well as for a CD changer for my car. This company has the most restrictive sales policies I have ever seen anywhere on the net, in catalogs, or in bricks-and-mortar. Check out the five-page return form on their website. I especially enjoyed the vague parts about the customer being liable for things like "chargeback fees." What a joke. I spent the extra $20 and went to Crutchfield for the CD changer.

I wonder why they can't do color? If it is such a huge drain on batteries, how can a color Nintendo Game Boy run for so long on a set of 4 AAs? I would think that the Pronto, which only needs to fire up to push an IR signal would use less power than some kid playing games for hours on end.

i would not expect color pronto anytime soon because the processor used in pronto, motorola's dragonball processor, supports frame buffer but is limited to 2 bits per pixel (or only 4 colors at a time).

i would not expect philips to add color LCD to get only 4 colors. i would not expect philips to add external FB due to cost. i also would not expect philips to migrate to another processor (anytime soon). ergo, i do not expect color pronto anytime soon.
suoi

I am a college student, so I understand what you mean by limited funds. I bought my pronto in April and by now I dont even remember the money, I just thank the people of Philips for making my life easier. It is a very solid investment. I dont personally see my self using the pronto for decades, but for at least eight or nine years. If you do the math you are paying about 3 dollars a month for it. I believe it was worth every penny, and I dont have a lot of pennies to throw around. Good luck with your decision.
Jed
P.S. If it truly comes down to child care or a pronto, do whats right. Thats my only advice. If you can do both, then do it.

Just wanted to say "thanks" to all of the above. I really appreciate your time to answer my "newbie" questions. Truly great advice and I appreciate your opinions. It is good to know that there are others out there who decided to buy the Pronto after much deliberation, and are glad that they did. I will start saving!
Thanks again,
Sean
P.S. anyone want to buy a Sony? (smiling)
P.S.S. Great site Daniel!!!

Actually, I would tend to agree with the posts above about it not making much sense for Phillips to do a color version, or at least not for about 3 years. The only other company I would hold some hope with would be Pioneer. Reason being that they have recently come out with the "organic lcd" I don't know what exactly it is, but it can be found in some of their uppper end car audio head units. Basically it is a magnitude less power hungry, and will likely be developed further in the next 2 years. So come on Pioneer? What are ya waiting for ;-).

Mark Seaton

Damn, looks like "JA" beat me to the chase in the "organic electroluminence" thread =). Still great potential technology.

In the end, the point is, that the Pronto/RC-5000 is her NOW, and we can all listen/watch easier as friends and significant others can turn on the system upon first sight.

Mark Seaton

Just wanted to add that even though I'm only on Beta 2 of my CCF with no macros, fancy home screen or "activity" panels, my wife already likes the Pronto and is happy to have the 6 or 7 remotes off the table!

A lot of you have already commented on the goodness of a Pronto, so I won't go into detail here, but to summarize "It is the one thing that have managed to keep the wife happy because she can finally use all the junk that we bought. And this is good, because when she's happy, we can buy more junk...".

Regarding the discussion on color Pronto, I don't think it's time yet. It takes Palm Pilot a couple years already and they haven't even jump on the color bandwagon. The color PDA from HP and Compaq are not exactly selling like hotcakes.

Let's take a step back from our customer-point-of-view and try to look at this from a Philips marketing-point-of-view. And let describe this as a marketing problem.

Problem: The Pronto have been out for quite a while, but sales have not been phenomenal, comparing to others Philip's products.

Analysis: The primary reason for this is cost. Not everyone is ready to spend $300 for a remote control, while the average price for a universal remote is less than $100. There are other reasons (lack of advertising, competition...), but I think cost overwhelms all of these.

Solution: Drive down cost. The Palm Pilot cost less than half its original price. The Pronto must reach the same pricing structure in order to survive. And I'm guessing that magic range to be around $150. Why $150?. It would make sense to a lot of people that the remote control must cost less than any of the components in a home theater.

Future Development: Only, and only after sales of Pronto have gone up, that the following happens:

1. Next version of the original Pronto. This version is still non-color. The reason for this is to keep the market-share and to eliminate any competition. The way to do this is get the next version out, but selling at the same price.

2. Start developing a high-end version of the Pronto, and this is where color comes in. The high-end color will use color panels similar like those in existing PDA (HP, Compaq). Philips will not go out on a limb on "not-yet-proven-in-field" technology like organic display. The advantage that Philips will have in high-end Pronto is power. High-end Pronto should comes with docking-station as standard equipment, so no more battery issues. The pricing of high-end Pronto will be similar like those of today, $300+.

I will be completely honest here: personally, I would NEVER buy the Pronto over say the RC-2000Mk.II in the form that the Pronto comes defaulted to. The ONLY reason the Pronto is worth the money is precisely why this web page exists.... ITS POTENTIAL. Fancy graphics do nothing to get me excited until it is working flawlessly. As I have posted before, I work at a retail store(www.soundlabinc.com) now a big difference is that we deal with more upper end systems than not, and I wouldn't typically recommend the Pronto/RC-5000 with a sub $1000 reciever,as there are better ways to spend your money, but if functionallity and family use is top most priority, a well thought out PRONTO/RC-5000 is the best value available to date, PERIOD. In our store I myself will sell and program more than 10 of the RC-5000 remotes this month. The Marantz RC-5000 is $500 with the docking station included, and for anyone who has bought a system from us we have sold it for $500 including the programming. I have had many spouses and families VERY pleased they can live with less headache now. The way the sale typically goes is this:
Me: Here, try the remote is set up for this system, just read the screen and play with it for a minute.
Customer(when I return): So this will control ALL of my gear? one remote?
Me: With a little work, absolutely.
Customer: Ok, get me one(sometimes 2).
Customer: Oh yeah, how much is it?

=)
Mark Seaton

I have to agree with some of the other posts here, and make a few predictions.

If a color Pronto does come out, it will not be for a few years. If/when it does, it will be at a higher price range. At that time the current Pronto should be lower in cost as the development costs are paid off. The "normal" Pronto will continue to be sold at a lower price range.

Basic compatibilty between the two units should be maintained -- this is something Philips must do. Right now even having a CCF with a hidden panel makes it completely inoperable on Marantz' software -- not good at all. Any future ProntoEdit software version should be able to take a color Pronto's file and, through a conversion process, convert all of the BMPs to gray shades automatically, no questions asked.

People think of remote controls as a cheap that doesn't really matter. But think about it. How do you control all of your home theater components? Which component is used the most of all? Which component MUST be understood by your entire family? The remote! Taking this into account, $300 is not a lot to ask for something like the Pronto.

I would much rather see continued development of the Pronto in it's current hardware form than effort put into a completely new product. Perfect one before moving on the other. Yeah, that isn't exactly standard corporate strategy - but I link to think the Philips could be different. Prove me right!