Have a customer looking for a touch screen remote. I used to do mostly Pronto's & the Xantech XTR39 for customers wanting touchscreens. After showing the customer a couple small screen remotes such as the Pronto TSU9200 [I have left over stock] & a few other options, customer says he'd like something with a larger touch screen.

I did some research & found the Sony tablet has some good reviews for its remote operation but can't find much about its ability to do macros & jumps. ANY ONE OUT HERE TRIED THE SONY TAB AS A DEDICATED REMOTE? KNOW IF APP HAS BEEN UPDATED TO ALLOW MACROS & JUMPS TO DEVICE PAGES AFTER INITIALIZING MACRO? Posts & reviews on the use of macros & jumps are vague on this feature. Otherwise, it looks very promising.

We are using the Sony Tablet S in our office as well as at the house. The remote control portion is fairly limiting as far as open architecture programming and graphics. However, it works very well overall. I have not tried to push the limits with macros and such, but component commands have been 100%. I am controlling my Sony TV, a TiVo, and a blu-ray player.

On a different note, compared to the iPad, this is the only tablet I have used that I find as good as the iPad - and in some ways better.

My advice is to look at bitwise or command fusion for a tablet solution to take the place of the old 1 zone pronto projects.

There is no profit in selling the iPad or android tablet and app but... this can benefit you. Your proposal will only have the back end hardware on it. This will allow you to squeeze the tablet solution into lower budget projects and remove you from the dead battery/client dropped it service and support that came with half baked niche market control products of the past.

I mentioned bitwise and command fusion because they were the first to pop in my head. Plenty of other options out there. They both allow full customization of the user interface and macros and page flips and all the stuff you were able to do with Pronto touchpanels.

The GUI is cool and does exactly what you want it to do. The touchpanel is sleek and client sourced/owned/supported. Your back end hardware is rock solid and the whole package comes in right around what the pronto would have cost.

I have (I should say I got my wife) a sony tablet s. The built in remote software is basic, this set of pages for this device type of thing. It works and is ok but you can't even remove unused buttons from the 'fixed' device layout', you can give the unused button a 'blank' name but it's probably not what the type of thing you are used to at all. The remote software is currently 'closed' so there is no fixing it. There is no public API for the IR so it's basically a closed system at this point. Given Sony's past, I doubt they open it up to a soluction by bitwise or another vendor with real remote software but that's what needs to happen IMHO. BTW: the software is right on the main panel so you can go into any store and 'add a device' to see how it works real quick. It does hit the internet to get the remote codes for the device to be added so the store would need an internet connection for you to check it out to see how it works.
Basically, it works but it is very limited, it's basically just a set of generic layouts for each type of device and you can group the devices.

Stamp - Thanks for the suggestion. I contacted Bitwise & got enough info to be able to quote the the customer I mention. Customer likes the idea of a tab to control the system and says he'd rather do it with a iPad. He will decide when back from vacation, in 2 weeks, exactly what we do.
Bitwise refered me to their Rep here on Long Island & we making an appointment to see a demo next week. It looks like you say & will definately work for those touch screen customers looking for "cool". I see many possibilities for this.

I would look into On Controls. It's tablet and phone based, cloud based, and the we can actually make money selling it. Every system I have done with On Controls has succeeded my customers expectations and blown their mind. I would highly recommend doing one of their trainings or see if they have any on line training. Honestly, there is nothing out there like it.

Mike

+1 Stamp.

Bitwise is your solution.  We use them all the time.  It's a solid piece of equipment.  You can use the templates or you can break away and do your own complete layout. (Be warned, if you decide to do this, you'll eat up some hours in programming).  If you use the template you can knock it out relatively quick.