I currently use an "Automator" Universal remote with learning capabilities. The remote actually does everything I need it to, currently. I've had it for about 5 years and generally I was pleased with product. My wife hates the Automator she finds it very non-user friendly. In her defense, the Automator required a lot of time consuming manual programming, especially with the Direct TV remote, and since I did all the programming it took her a while to catch up. We are making some upgrades and all of our components are going into a hall closet. So, I need to get an RF remote (i think)?

Budget: no more than $250, would rather it be less
Needs: RF, friendly user interface, learning capabilities, 6 components(maybe more in the future)

I was considering the Harmony 900. After reading in the CI forums those guys seem to have a very low opinion of Logitech. I have a Logitech Squeezebox and I have had nothing but trouble with it, so I'm not sure I want to give Logitech another chance. Another thing that concerns me about the Harmony is, that if you look on ebay you will tons of these that have been returned, refurbished, or being sold for parts. It occurs to me that, that is not good sign at all. So, I'm hoping to get some input from the pros......

Best Wishes

Chad

URC MX450 + URC MRF260 = $400 MSRP

The above is probably your best bet.

This is the less expensive, more difficult to program-fewer feature alternative.

[Link: amazon.com]

This is an RF remote but it doesn't have individual emitters. It has a blaster that will (hopefully) hit everything in the cabinet. The buttons aren't as up to date as the 450. You wont find the typical 8 transport buttons.....

Play
stop
pause
rew
ffwd
skip+ or advance
skip back or replay
record

Those are typical for cable or satellite or bluray. Plus you have the 4 color buttons you need to add. The 450 has all those as hard buttons so you can save the soft keys above for the color buttons.

Another option (DIY roll up your sleeves) is an IR repeater kit and JP1. This should stay under $250 with very little effort. You can use a cheap remote from radioshack and get an ir repeater kit from amazon. You will need to run wire between the TV and the closet. You may or may not have good luck with the plasma and LCD proof IR repeater kits. Basically the light from the TV screws with the signal so you have to get the right kit and experiment with placement sometimes. You will need to visit the JP1 forums and do some reading [Link: hifi-remote.com]

You are asking for something, that simply does not exist at the price range you want to pay.

In my opinion the older URC remote shown in the thread above, just does not fit most systems well today. Programming this remote is also done via the front panel, and is a bit tedious. It also does not support variables, so unless your system has discrete commands for everything, it is going to be a bit frustrating at times, when things get out of sync.

The Harmony 900 is slightly out of your price range. If you spend a little more, you could afford it.

I know I'll get flamed for this, but I could care less anymore. The CI's will tell you how unreliable it is... but I think this is largely a biased opinion based on other factors. I believe most don't like Logitech Harmony remotes, because they are available through consumer channels, so they would likely make little or no markup on these remotes. The CI's like to say how they sell the value of their time, but most don't really want to show it on an invoice!

Regarding reliability; I have two Harmony One's, that are about 2 years old, and a Harmony 900 that is about a year old at this point. I have replaced the battery in a Harmony One, as it was starting to swell a bit. Some people might point this out as a problem with Harmony, but I've had the same problem with a URC MX-3000 that I paid $1000 for, and the URC MX-3000 which gets no where as much use, doesn't look as good today as the Harmony remotes, as the paint on the case is wearing in areas where it gets held. (Also, URC changed their policy on not wanting to providing me the software to program the remote, after I had purchased the remote. So, they are not above taking your money, and then not wanting to give you what they sold.)

The MX-450 is a really nice remote, but if you have equipment that has toggle commands, or you need to keep state information... for example input selection on a TV, the MX-450 will not handle this as cleanly as Harmony does. Harmony has the ability to keep variables in memory, and change the state of those depending on what you have on, off, last selected input on the TV. The higher cost URC remotes do as well, but will require programming by a professional as they won't even give you the programming tools. The MX-450 does not support variables. If your equipment has discrete commands for On, Off, and Input Selection, then you will likely be fine with the MX-450, but at a substantial price above the Harmony.

Harmony is the best consumer product. CI's wont use it because it's not a good fit for what we do. I hide emitters inside of every component so you dont see them and they don't fall off. This isnt possible with harmony. I require 2way communications for subsystems and some CE products. There are a hundred other reasons but they are all about not being able to use a consumer product for a professional installation.

I cant comment on reliability and to be honest i am surprised anyone else does. Search these forums for "white screen of death" and "bad battery" and "side trigger" and you will find some pro products that are not reliable. IMO there might be 5 guys on this forum who can actually comment on the reliability of harmony vs the others and i dont know who.. if anyone will be the clear winner.

Toggle Commands - This is like POWER instead of ON and OFF. Or INPUT instead of Input 1 Input 2 etc. This is important for macro commands that automate things. So if you pressed a Blu-ray button a series of commands would be sent like this....

Blu-ray ON MACRO:
AV Receiver ON
TV ON
Blu-ray ON
AV Receiver DVD Input
TV HDMI 2 (Blu-ray)
Blu-ray PLAY

Up above you will see discrete ON commands. This is important because POWER commands could turn the unit on or off. So lets say the TV is on but everything else is off and you press Blu-ray ON.. If you don't have the ON command now the TV will turn off and everything else will turn on. Not so bad but lets say every device has POWER commands.. it would be impossible to get this sorted out from the universal remote. Harmony tries to compensate for this but IMO its better to have products that can be discretely controlled.

That was a very basic macro. More advanced commands can be added with the right hardware. An example would be "Start up volume 40%". This lets you force the receiver to a specific volume level every time you turn it on. So if your kids and playing video games really loud the night before you wont scare yourself when you want to watch the news in the morning. Another example is maybe add "Lights Off" in a theater so that when you start the movie the lights dim.

I brought this up to give you an idea of why a professional chooses professional products over harmony. Harmony can do macros and they do a decent job of it but it cant be full customized. For most of America this is just fine but for some it wont work. Another reason CI's don't want to sell products available @ amazon for well below MSRP is because their is zero incentive to. Add that with the fact that it cant be customized and thats the reason most CI's wont use it or recommend it.

As for the comment about the value of my time.. lol it reminds me of an old story about the repair man charging an outrageous amount of money to do something very basic and the client complaining. I cant remember the details but it goes something like this.... "$200 to tighten a bolt! That's highway robbery!" The repair man then explains "you are not paying me to tighten a bolt, you are paying me because i know which bolt to tighten." Amazon can sell things for less than what i can but Amazon cant tell you which things to buy.

Thanks for your input. I really appreciate it.

Chad

Get the mx-450, then save money by searching for nxg nx-rf200 rf narrow band basestation, exact same thing as the mrf-260. could save a $100

I'm not a CI, but I was a long time Harmony user. I'm not reluctant at all to address the reliability question of the Harmony remotes. I owned 3 (or 4) different models. They were the primary remote for our main AV area (the living room) and in use every day, almost all day on most days. I got a year to year-and-a-half out of them at most. I was not using the low end models. Usually I was using the highest model WITHOUT a touch screen (my family hated the Sony touchscreen remote I had).

After procrastinating for over a year (which I'm very good at, by the way) and pestering the CIs here for advice (which they probably wish I WASN'T so good at, by the way), and after going through ANOTHER Harmony remote, I finally had the "DING!" moment where I realized the money I was spending on Harmony remotes would pay for a URC MX-980 which, by all reports, should last as long as 3 or 4 Harmony remotes.

Yes, it's more money going in, but it has been worth it. Using CCP it can be initially programmed quite easily and tweaked infinitely better than any Harmony. I'm still learning the fine points and I'm SURE I'm not doing it as well as a pro, but it works and it's been reliable.

It WILL blow your $250 budget all to hell. But I can say that, having bit the bullet, I will never go back to a Harmony. And despite what I've just said about Harmony remotes, I am not a Logitech hater. That line of remotes saved my butt when I found out about them many years ago. They fit a need. I've simply moved on.

I wouldn't recommend anything below an MX-880. Such remotes will be outside of your $250 budget, but if you want something better than Harmony, they cost more. You will get what you pay for though.

I suggest the MX-880 or MX-900 and MRF-260.

They aren't as inexpensive as you wanted, but I hope the information is useful.



Thank you,
Damon