Hi, I'm not such a control freak that willing to spend a grand for the remote that have to be handled by two arms and possibly teeth. Just want the new model of MX-700 or MX-800 that would have the following features:

1. About the same size as MX-700/800, my be even a little longer or thicker to fit AA batteries. But anyone should be able to easy handle it with one hand!

2. In addition to device modes the support for activity modes like dedicated buttons for Sound, Picture, Lights and/or Misc.

3. LCD: Maybe touchscreen instead the side buttons but with fixed layout (for instance 2 columns with 10-20 touch-sensitive rows would be sufficient). Possibility to use small/capitalized words or maybe simple pixel icons - no colors, but just please the plain high contrast B/W!

4. Sleep Timer, On-Off timers that understand weekends, etc. to set wake-ups and control other equipment when needed (VCR, lights, heat radiators...)

5. And at the end of my list, THE MOST REQUIRED FEATURE: state control variables (like in Harmony SST-768 and HTM MX-3000) not only for power toggles, but also for even most complicated multi-button toggles/loops for receiver surround modes, speaker levels, etc.


What do you folks think about those wishes? When HTM will release such remotes? Don't think it would be much more expensive that the current MX-700/800, maybe somewhere in $250-350 fork?

You can do this now by assigning those names to unused device locations, then program the appropriate commands and macros.


The touchscreen size would have to be much larger to accomodate 10 to 20 rows (especially with my fingers ;-)). Personally, I prefer being able to operate most of those buttons without looking at them and the touchscreen would make that difficult.


I agree. This would be a welcome addition.


This is a feature of the upcoming MX-3000 and I agree that it can be the most important. So few remotes have this feature and until every manufacturer supports discrete commands, this would be a very much appreciated addition.

Good ideas. I'd like to see what others think as well.

Mike
www.SurfRemote.com
www.SurfAudioVideo.com

Sure you can, but having dedicated Sound and Picture like "jump" buttons will do the things much more logical (these are really just jumps for tweaking maybe Dolby settings or TV screen format, not full-featured device modes). My point here is the convinience to operate a home theater system as the entity.


I agree. Hard buttons have more "sense". Touch screen would be a bit more expensive too. Okay, let's drop this touchless point.


Not only that, but even with all discretes available the toggle/loop buttons on remotes do save a lot of the overall buttons quantity required otherwise to operate more complex equipment like surround receivers etc. I guess that's the reason we are going to use state variables for a long time ahead.


Thanks Mike, it would be nice to here some info from HTM about their brand new MX-..whatever.. model that has an optimal price and feature set.