Mark,

Could you please grow up. Thanks for your help.

Some help vs condescending attitudes. I feel the love. Just that nugget helps. I have asked URC who my dealer or distributor is? I have given them my address (Massachusetts), but despite thinking they would want to assist hooking folks up to actually move product, I have received nothing back.

I am a big boy and can do the right steps. I know extremists on both sides would rather have the installer-consumer war go in in both petulant corners ad infinitum. I know people feel so manly when they can denegrate others.

Conversely, I actually would like to get a resolution.

EDIT: With that nugget tracked down who the rep should be. Thank you. Hopefully they can help.

Man loose the chip on your shoulder. Everyone here will help you if you drop the hostile attitude. For the record Mark is very grown up. About 6'4" grown up with grey hair.
Now that was not hard to find the rep was it? I am just guessing you will not enjoy what he has to tell you. I would say it will be reality check time but good luck.

Yep, reality check you will be sorry to find URC does not have much respect for its customers...... it's really a shame.

URC rocks! We have sold and programmed many many of their remotes and their tech support and troubleshooting has been awsome. I am getting tired of the URC bashing, Rich.


I noticed your name is Rich Simmons. Are you not in the fitness and diet industry? Perhaps this is why you seem not to know anything about the Custom and DIY home electronics industry.

Yes, URC has great products, sketchy tech support (I have had equipment profiles done in days to 9 months for the HD-2K). I get tired of fanboy attitudes based on vested interests. Regardless can you take the personal insults to a different thread.

Jed, I appreciate you are the first and only respondent that was actually helpful (a few acqusations & vitriol mixed in but a contrast to the 100% juvenile response).

If The rep doesn't want to sell product or support installations then I'll just migrate all the centers to a different solution. The loser is the taxpayer. We started with prontos, users liked the hard buttons of the URC, but we can migrate to RTI as they seem less consumer oriented up front (not changing policies after the fact), but ameniable to small order support without the bureaucratic run around. Screwing the installed base on supportability because of lack of control of sales channels in unconscionable. Any company knows that, but 1-2 remotes every 3-4 months means we don't have the volume to be on the radar. It would have been a no brainer with no end user complaints to change over to the new policy for new remotes as they are introduced, particularly since it appears all our 850s are going into orphaned status at some point. We are constrained to have a consistent baseline across all centers, or we would just switch over to another remote or different vendors, most custom installers would go nuts if they had to have every house with the same equipment and nearly equivalent configurations, so we fall through the cracks again.

Man, I just don't understand. You state your a consumer, then state you do a few remotes every few months as a gov't contractor. So which is it?

State the facts.

Are you the janitor doing this at night? Are we missing something? Where is the software used from doing the other 100 remotes you claim you did? As a CI, my work
laptop doesn't have the new software yet, but I still manage to program my customers remotes on a daily basis. I was however able to obtain the new software with a 10 word email to my disti. Why can't you do the same? Where are you sourcing your gear? E-Bay?

Most of us here are very willing to help but your story doesnt add up.

Most custom installers would love to have systems setup with identical systems.
We work hard to find equipment that works well, is reliable and is easy to program.
That should make your decision on a remote much easier.

RTI is a wonderful company with a great lineup of remote systems, but they are not going to give you the one thing most of you guys want, live update. They don't update their code data base as often and they expect their dealers to build their own custom databases by learning the remote codes directly.

With MX series remotes, even if you never get another live update again, you will be able to learn codes to change the few commands that might change every couple of years. As a cost savings to you or your programmers the MX remotes can learn IR without a seperate IR learning module.

The cure for your problem is to buy your next remote from a dealer you trust and ask them up front if they understand URC dealers supply the software now. As an installer that sells the remotes programmed, most of my clients have no desire for the software, but if they did want it I would be happy to supply it.

This website has great dealers that care about their customers and understand what URC wants from them. If you build a relationship with them and become a good client, I'm sure you'll never be stuck without the software or updates you need.

This whole thread is a joke.

If this guy is doing gov contracts and 'command and control' centers, with vendor connections to displays, AV switches and the like, he should be able to hook up with a distributor for URC remotes.

The software still works. They aren't 'orphaned' yet.

I've never heard of event he simplest NOC's or command centers controlled by one way IR remotes. I'm curious about the setup.

If you get a distributor or rep that doesn't call back, welcome to our industry. Move on to the next one. You have 3 CI's at your behest trying to help out, and you're still dishing out attitude. With me, that would be 4. I'm sure at the very least one of us would know someone in your locale that could help out and hook you up as a CI or get you an AD, but it's not likely to happen with your ascerbic attitude.

You get more with sugar than you do with vinegar.

Big Papa,

Which is it, are you trying to help or are you a CI?




I'll buy you a beer at UCR's party.

Any idea as to what a bupka is?

Some kind of doughnut.

Yes, and yes.

Yet, it's hard to help someone who doesn't want it, or who makes it hard to help.

The lamest thing about his post is that all he needs to do is go here:

[Link: universalremote.com]

and call a rep that covers his area. It appears to be so simple yet he is doing government centers and can't figure it out, like I and others have said before you do not need new software just to add new codes in the future, just download a file from here and cut and paste or learn them directly from the remote. If he actually does replace all of these so called remotes he will be the one wasting tax money, not URC.