Well, I'm not in the marketing department, but the market segment we targeted for the MX-810 is the group of installers who prefer, or are accustomed to, wizard-style programming. Clearly, that's not you. However, there are many installers who do fit into this group. This group of installers tends to be less experienced programmers, but are often quite experienced at installing the components themselves. That made the MX-810 a valuable "bottleneck reliever" for shops that had to refuse jobs or put jobs on hold because there wasn't enough bandwidth for the experienced programmers to take on programming all the single-room installations while still affording appropriate attention to the higher-paying multi-room or whole-house installs.

It may be that none of these situations describes your shop. And we understand that. We never expected that the MX-810 would be applicable to every installer, and that's why it was our first remote to be designed and marketed for that specific market segment of installers. If your shop isn't one of them, it may be hard to believe that there's a huge group of installers who DO work that way... but believe me, they do.

However, the MX-810 and its history are now irrelevant to installers who may have been trying to make ProWizard do what they wanted an MX-Editor to do. We built the MX-880 to answer the specific feature concerns of installers who wanted an MX-Editor remote with color graphics and the easy programmability of the MX-900.

Best regards,
Dale

Well,

I see where your coming from, but if you look at this thread....

"mx-810 how do I select the correct inputs."

the wizard has some serious issues that a novice programmer or even a more experienced installer whose new to URC has to find work arounds for.

I know nothing of others skill level, but I have used the wizard and find it more difficult to set up than spending time to learn an editor.

I learned the MX980 in less than 30 minutes by reading the information in the help menu.

I'm sorry Wizard or not, if you can't learn the editor for a remote you might be in the wrong business.

There's nothing wrong with the editor other than like most would agree there's not one unified editor for all remotes.

I will use the MX-880 if the price can be justified, but like I said the difference in price would lead me to use the MX-980.

I love the versatility of the MX-900, having a color version at the same price point would be awesome.

Just an opinion and you know everybody has a different one.

I would think most people will spring for the 980 over the 880 for only $100 more. As others have said, the dock alone is worth the extra $100....and the 980 has even more features beyond that. 880 should be $449 or maybe even $399 IMO.

I just wish URC would have put a FAV button between the two page buttons on the 980.

The omission of a docking station was one of the first things mentioned when the MX-810 was just a prototype. I also said at that time that it should at least be an option, so it's been a long time request. Now, with the addition of the MX-800, I'm considering making my own for customers that want them (who are in the vast majority of MX-810 customers).

As justarep mentioned, I would recommend that everyone who would like to see an optional charging base for the MX-810/880 post in the Control Room.

Quick question for Darnitol. Is there any chance of getting the graphics editing capability of the 880 filtered over to the mx-810 in the future? I know there's the workaround (backdoor really) posted here on the forums, but is URC thinking about making this feature a part of the wizard software in the future? Maybe under customization?

I don't see it happening. The internal architecture of the two remotes are different, despite obviously sharing a significant number of components. If it was that easy, I suspect we would have written an MX-Editor for MX-810 months ago to bolster sales of that model. As I mentioned in other threads: while it's technically possible for the MX-810 to have an MX-Editor, it would likely end up being an MX-Editor "with its head cut off." The electronics and firmware of the MX-810 were designed around ProWizard, and vice versa. While I would guess that with a significant time investment, you could probably get an MX-Editor-like program functional on the MX-810, it would still lack some of the capabilities of the MX-880. That would make the whole thing a losing proposition for both URC and installers.

Best regards,
Dale

Well, I think an 8 year old could figure out that you can use the current cable and allow it to be plugged into either the remote of the docking cradle.

So put a couple of charging contacts on the back or bottom, allow the current cable to be plugged into the cradle, and you can have the remote charge in the cradle, or when a customer forgets to charge it, they can unplug the cradle and plug the cord into the remote like they do now, and everyone is happy.

Thanks Dale, appreciate you trying to bring it up at least! I'm definitely not the first to bring this up, I know SurfRemote has wanted one for a looong time. I know the demand is there for sure as SurfRemote reports! My MX950 can be used still while sitting in its dock, would think 880/810 would be the same no matter if in dock or just plugging into cord.

I was toying with the 880 editor when I noticed what appears to be a "back light button" in a similar location to the 900's.

Does the 880 have a "pick-up" sensor to light the screen, or is it manual?

Looks like it has both.

Actually, I'd LOVE URC to come out with an in-wall solution. Some good competition in that space would benefit everyone.

And I personally prefer the stability and reliability of URC over RTi....throw in an in-wall solution and the game would be ON. Dale, any commentary on why URC hasn't gone in this direction yet? I think you guys are missing out on a whole market level of control because of NOT having in-wall solutions.

On the other (negative) hand.....I wish URC would communicate better on technicial bug statuses and actually resolve some of the long, outstanding MSC-400 serial bugs.

Thanks for listening....

Would that be a hard-wired in-wall solution?
Removable from an in-wall dock?
If you could start with a KP900, what would you do with it?
Color, touch screen or side buttons?
And when all is said and done, targeted retail?

I can't comment on product direction, but instead of just not saying anything, I wanted to at least say that I can't say anything. I guess that, like most companies, we're probably taking care to grow cautiously in this economy. Look at Nintendo with the Wii: they know for certain they could sell twice as many of them, but they're not ramping up production to do so. Why? Because it's impossible to say where the cut-off is, where a production run ends up burning profit instead of making it. They'd rather leave a little money on the table than take the risk of throwing a little money down the hopper.

Best regards,
Dale

Yes, hard wired, in-wall, permanent solution.

Removable from an in-wall dock? Hmmmm not required, but would be a nice option I guess if possible. In my opinion and after working with and talking to my customers, they don't want to carry around something the size of a T4/K4 or MX-3000/6000.

And I honestly think there are limited GOOD uses of touchscreens and in-walls.

Touchscreens: Not on hand-helds for one. Everyone thinks thay are so cool at first, until they get tired of looking down at their remote while they're laying on the couch. You should be able to feel your way around the remote, even for the color screen areas (like the majority of URC's handhelds). For example...why would I want to have a T4 or a MX-3000 in my media room? Why would I want to have to look at my remote all of the time and have such a large area of "light" coming on from the touchscreen during the middle of a great movie.

In-walls: I feel these should be limited to the uber common areas....like kitchens, entries, gamerooms....basically anyplace where the majority of your time you're standing up and moving around as opposed to sitting down most of the time. Combo of touchscreen with some common (transport mostly) type of buttons. Or at a minimum, I'd be happy with larger 980 type of in-wall (screen with buttons on side), common transport and nav hard buttons with some video and network capabilities.

Start with KP900? Honestly, and I don't mean this in a smarta$$ way....I wouldn't. Color first of all (no more B&W!, customers want color!). It's way far off from what we're talking about in my opinion.....

Anyways....obviously, these are just my opinions.....everyone has them, so no need to flame.....

: ) I had a feeling your response would be that. Understood Dale....