Ahhh yes! I am a geek and I am in heaven right now. Today, after humming and hahhing about the cost of a universal remote vs the annoyance of having too many remotes to swap between, I finally succumbed and shelled out $400 AUD for one of these.
Impulse purchases are my thing. Unfortunately I spent all day researching these:
Thankfully, my credit card is unable to stretch to the $3000 AUD required to buy one, otherwise I would have ordered it immediately.
Instead, I went to the local electronics store for an S-Video cable. A lowly $13 cable that would hook the TV out of my spare computer up to the TV so I can run Itunes etc from the couch using Synergy to control the spare computer with the keyboard and mouse from my laptop. As I browsed the shelves of gadgets on offer I saw the remote and just had to have it.
Not only does it replace all my current remotes but it has an Activities button. This is where the remote goes to the next level. By configuring an Activity such as “Watch a DVD” the remote will turn on the TV, the DVD player, switch the TV to the appropriate input and press play on the DVD. All that with two button presses!
My two digital set top boxes were automatically configure just by selecting the manufacturer and entering the model number. My DVD player is just a cheap brand and so I had to program the buttons individually. The most enjoyable part was the JVC tv. I entered the model number and suddenly I had a bunch of extra buttons that could be programmed that didn’t exist on my remote.
The capability exists to program multiple commands in set sequences so that you could, for example, press watch DVD and the TV or stereo could be set to your favourite surround sound settings and then when you switch away it could be reset to normal operation.
The programming of the remote happens in a very simple program on your PC that connects to the Harmony website to store your settings, download existing commands etc. That way, if you ever need to reformat your PC or you upgrade, you can still access all your settings after reinstall.
I’m off now to play with my new gadget, and to thank God that they didn’t have Ultra Mobile PC’s at the local electronics store, or I would be extremely broke!