Bought and returned a URC-RF10 because it had a problem executing macros correctly. I'll get to that later in this mini review.

The RF10 is a bit on the large side and felt large in my hand. After installing the 4 AAA batteries, it felt heavier than other remotes I've used.

The first thing I noticed regarding the buttons is that the navigation buttons (oval) and center SEL button are higher than the other buttons. The front face is actually tapered upward to make the navigation oval and SEL button higher than the other buttons as shown in the following picture (which is like the RF10 that I received):



I didn't like this design because the navigation oval being higher, interfered with pressing the "Fast reverse <<" transport button a bit (I'm right handed). All of the buttons require a rather firm press to activate compared to other remotes I've used and I didn't care for the firm press required.

All of the buttons can be red back lit by pressing the light button on the right side of the remote, but the light only shows through the actual lettering on the buttons. It's not like the whole button lights up. The miniscule amount of light showing through the tiny letters made it difficult to read the lettering. I didn't like the backlighting method at all but figured once I got used to the button positions for a device, I wouldn't need to use the back lighting much.

The RF10 did not have pre-programmed codes for our Cisco ISB7050 DVR or ISB7000 set-top boxes so I had to learn every key into the "CBL" device. That took some time but the learning was solid and worked well.

Now for why I bought the RF10. The Cisco ISB70x0 units require 22 button presses to navigate to the caption option, turn it on and save it. It requires 21 button presses to turn captions off. (It's ridiculous to force hearing impaired folks to press 22 buttons just to turn captions on. A fault of the Cisco boxes, not the RF10.) So I needed a remote that can hold at least 22 steps per macro and the RF10 can hold 50 steps per macro.

I discovered that the RF10 can only hold macros in the 8 device buttons and the Power On and Power Off buttons for a total of 10 buttons. It would not hold macros in any other button that I tried. I found in the manual where it confirmed that there are only 10 buttons that can hold macros. I was disappointed but could live with it since my main purpose was to have two macro buttons for captions on/off.

I programmed the "Caption On" steps in the "VCR" device button. But when it executed, the RF10 sent too many right navigation commands ">". By process of elimination I discovered that when I programmed "MENU >>" (2 right arrows) the RF10 would actually send "MENU >>>" (3 right arrows). It was adding an extra ">" command. So in effect, it's impossible to program "MENU >>" into a macro and have it execute correctly. ----- To verify, I programmed "MENU vv" into a device button. The RF10 would send "MENU vvv". It would add an extra "v" command.

Note that if I used the RF10 manually and turned captions on by pressing each button myself, everything worked perfectly so the buttons that I learned were all correct.

I called URC technical support and the tech suggested inserting pauses in my command string. I told him that I didn't want to do that since the RF10 macro commands are quite slow to begin with and I didn't want to make it slower. I also explained that I have a URC-SR3 and it sends the exact same commands a bit faster than the RF10 and it works fine so the delays are not the problem. Also, delays are if macro commands are sent too fast and the device cannot keep up. In my case, the RF10 was sending 3 ">" commands instead of 2 that I programmed. The tech said that there's nothing else to try so I told him that I would be returning the RF10.

(Note that the URC-SR3 does not have problems with its macro commands. It executes macros perfectly. The problem is that the SR3 can only hold 20 steps per macro, not enough for my purpose.)

After hanging up, I took the time to enter pauses between the commands just to be sure. That didn't make any difference and the RF10 continued to send 3 ">" commands instead of 2 that I programmed.

So I returned the RF10 today and will look for another remote. I decided to write this mini review since I couldn't find any when I was researching the RF10. Maybe my experience can help others interested in the URC-RF10.

Raptor