Mother in law is moving in and wife and her have trouble keeping remote pointed at the right place until turn on is done. My tv is the only thing exposed, the rest is in a closet. I am using a harmony and Xantech now. I need to control tv by ir. Directv can take ir or rf and then the usually blueray, receiver and laser disk. Any suggestions on something that might work better? Thanks

Get a hub based (RF) Harmony (Elite, Companion).

In the mean time, rework the delays and possibly the commands in your activity macros. Depending on your receiver, you may be able to get the inter-device delays down to zero, hence no more misses. On my Denon, the discrete input commands also act as discrete on. So all I have to do is send TV power and the Denon discrete input command, and the macro is finished. I realize this can be tricky to do on Harmony, but it's worth the effort.

Looking for a SIMPLE remote control. Doesn't need to do anything fancy - Needs to be universal - but just a basic remote.

I want to be able to control a Samsung - Sony and LG TV with one remote.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

At $20 shipped, this is by far the best value in universal remotes today, IMO. Overkill for your current situation, but you'll never need to upgrade if you ever decide to do more.

[Link: hifi-remote.com]

Here are some simpler remotes with advanced capabilities for the future, should you ever need it.

[Link: amazon.com]
[Link: amazon.com]

If you get something too simple, you'll regret it because too many functions will be missing and you'll have to use your original remotes for those. Get something like the ones above that can perform every possible function on all your devices. All the ones I've posted are very cheap and easy to program, the Nevo being the easiest and most versatile.