I've been a relatively happy user of a Harmony 515 remote for about a year or so. I say *relatively* because I've found the Logitech's programming & operation very slow & arduous sometimes. My Panasonic TV doesn't have discrete codes for AV input switching which really makes it any 'activity' based remote a pain to program & use. I much prefer having a remote emulate different personalities & having dedicated buttons to switch between them. My wife doesn't have any problem understanding the concept of input switching etc so we don't actually *need* any macro-based stuff.

Our 515 is now beginning to lock up when some buttons are pressed repeatedly - and some buttons (notably Volume Down) are beginning to show signs of wearing out (!! on a remote which gets occasional use !!) so I'm going to have to replace it.

Before the 515 I used a OFA-6 remote I reprogrammed via a JP1 cable. I ended up having to reprogram it because none of the device codes I could find had enough active buttons on its 'VCR' profile for my MythTV PVR. The OFA-6 has slightly too few buttons to be able to use comfortably with a PVR anyway & it has no dedicated 'info' or 'guide' buttons. Having the extra 8 buttons under the flap helped a little but it wasn't ideal having useful functions hidden away.

Looking around it still doesn't seem there are many alternatives to Harmony if you want a relatively cheap remote you can operate with one hand that doesn't need a charging cradle AND is computer programmable. I can live without the computer programmable part *if* there's a way I can assign a 'DVR' device profile utilising all of the buttons on the face of the remote.

OneForAll have the Essence line of remotes I quite like the look of - they have enough buttons but information about which buttons are active on device profiles is non-existent. I'm not sure about the 'device' key merely cycling between profiles though & I don't think any of the new OFA models are JP1 programmable right now which is a shame. There's the 'SmartControl' line too but they all look like they're a step in the wrong direction towards what Logitech are doing - I don't want an activity based remote unless it still has dedicated personality buttons.

After searching the internet & looking at various forums it appears that it's not only Logitech's low-end remotes which are plagued with unreliability issues so I very much doubt I'll be going down that road again.

So.. where do I go from here? Is it worth testing the water & picking up a OneForAll Essence 4, seeing if I can fettle it to have all the buttons work with my PVR & returning it to the shop if not? If only there was a remote like the OFA-6 model but with a couple of extra buttons.. my wife *loves* that one. She hates the Harmony remote to the point of refusing to use it at all.

I believe that it is not currently known whether the Essence 4 has a JP1.3 interface. However, it is a quite new remote design, and should carry just about any setup code that you need, and the manual shows that it accepts 994 style keymoves.

I'm not knowledgeable about Myth, but I had thought that you can assign any set of IR signals to it. If not, tell us what Ir signals you need, and we can help see if the Essence 4 has the correct executor/device numbers to send the IR signals

The main issue I might have with the Essence 4 is that it may or may not have a device profile with enough *active* buttons. I ran into that problem with my OFA-6 - but then that came around long before any PVRs existed.

It doesn't matter what codes the remote spits out so long as they're unique for every button press (and they're the same protocol obviously). I can learn a new remote on my mythtv machine without any problems :-)

On UEI remotes (such as OneForAll), all buttons are accessible through the use of 994 style keymoves. So if you use a particular setup code for your Myth, and not every button sends a signal, you can manually program the inactive buttons to send a signal. Of course, some setup codes have more active buttons than others, so you should use the Lookup Tool to find a well-populated setup code, and manually fill in the inactive buttons with unused EFCs.