Hello,

I've owned the Ucommand 515 for about a year now, and the only frustration that I have had with it was it's lack of hard buttons. I took a look at most of the popular LCD based learning remotes and noticed that they only had 4 buttons or so, and I thought that it should be easy enough to get something like that on my 515.

Well, my first plan was to just scratch a tiny mark with a file next to key buttons (like volume and channel buttons). I thought that I would try it with textured stickers first, to see if it would work, but then, I had an idea.

I thought I would take apart an existing remote (an old one) and cut out buttons and glue them in place on top of the screen, over the volume up and down buttons on the LCD (since they stay VOL UP and VOL DN for every device, at least on my setup). I scratched that idea for my current one:

I went to Radio Shack and purchased silicone feet, for electronics boxes. These are little "bubbles" with adhesive - they look just like hard buttons. I stuck these over the Volume up and Volume down buttons and it looks and works PERFECTLY. I now can control the VOL Up, Vol Dn and Channel up buttons without looking (the channel up button is right under the volume button, so there is no need to put a button there).

It doesn't look cheesy either, so you might want to give it a try - I don't know if these things can come off, so be sure you want to do this before you do it - I have found no disadvantages yet.

Also - look for the clear feet, not the black ones - clear looks much better and you can see through them.

-Mike

Interesting approach, Mike. I have attempted to keep the protective cover/plastic sheet on my LCD screen for as long as possible to prevent scratching -- so your silicone tactile reference points wouldn't be too much of a risk for me. Be careful, thought, Mike: you remember what happened with those human silicon implants ;-)

Mike: Excellent idea: I know the bubble-feet you are talking about... you can get them at hardware stores, too, in the "protective padding" area of the adhesive shelf along with chair feet skids and the like. I have a bunch from various speakers, too. I'll bet it works perfectly.... ... Mike

The ones at Radio Shack were perfect for the VOL up and VOL down buttons, if you can find slightly smaller ones, you could do VOL UP, VOL DN, CHAN Up, CHAN Dn without obstructing the remote, and without it looking hacked.

I experimented with putting little pips that I cut out of the spacing material on these buttons, but that started to look pretty lame, so I just left the Volume buttons and scrapped the other ones (the pips came off easy).

Another experiment that I was going to perform today was to use some clear inkjet labels and punch them with a hole puncher. I could then take these "dots" and put them on buttons that I use a lot (like the pause button for my Dish PVR). This way, they won't look odd, they will still be see through, and I will be able to feel them out (since they have a texture).

-Mike