What follows is an analysis in the New York Times of the shortcomings of "Universal Remotes." This analysis parallels some discussions we have had about the future of remote controls and touches on the notion that mobile devices like smartphones and tablets will become the remotes of the future.
The author's conclusion:Pretty soon I stopped scrolling, put down my phone, and reached for the zoo of remotes that have always clogged my coffee table. Sure, I'd love one good remote that would allow me to control everything. But that dream device isn't here yet.
I would counter that the dream device is here in the form of both smartphones and tablets, but that most of the devices we want to control are not ready to be controlled. As the author notes, in order to use his iPhone as a controller, he had to invest in "a $160 RedEye, a small console that sits in your living room and takes commands from the RedEye app."
IMHO the revolution will come when the devices we want to control provide a network connection and an API that allows all features to be controlled. The network could be based on a powerline interface for many appliances, a WiFi or Bluetooth interface, or an Ethernet interface.
What is clear is that the multi-button, multi-function universal remote has never lived up to the billing and cannot address additional requirements for the future related to GUI intensive applications like surfing the Internet. Clearly the need for keyboards and pointing devices with first generation Google TV implementation has put a damper on the potential for this platform.
The real question is when device manufacturers are going to build intelligence and networking into their devices and give up on the notion that THEY are in control. I expect TV manufacturers to struggle with this for years to come as they try to integrate TV and the Internet using button-style remotes.
Regards Craig http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/garden/20hometech.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha26 January 19, 2011 Universal Remotes: Not Remotely Possible By FARHAD MANJOOThe universal remote control is one of the modern world's great ideas, right up there with the automatic dishwasher, Wi-Fi and flush toilets. The theory behind this gadget is simple and sublime: In an increasingly automated and connected world, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could manage all our blinking machines from a single super controller?
Indeed, the vision is so irresistible that since the invention of the universal remote back in 1985, it has popped up everywhere. There's a good chance that your television, home theater system, cable box and every other device in your living room includes some kind of "universal" remote. There's an even better chance, though, that you've never used any of those universal functions. Each remote stands alone - you reach for one to control the channels, another for volume, another for the DVD player and so on, your coffee table and your brain more crowded than a Tokyo train at rush hour.
I wish I could tell you that there is a better way. But after testing many different universal remotes - cheap remotes, expensive remotes, smartphone remotes, and a few about which the less said, the better - I don't have much good news to report. Sure, some universal remotes are more useful than others, and one of them is almost pretty good, but in general these devices remain more appealing in theory than in practice. That's because they all suffer from an inherent, usually fatal flaw: universal remotes cannot possibly offer enough buttons to mimic all functions of all devices, so they usually have to make compromises, cutting out buttons here and there. The trouble is, some of those buttons are important.
An obvious example of this problem can be found in the Sony Remote Commander, which, at $10, is one of the most basic of universal remotes. How basic? It has just a handful of main buttons: channel up and down; volume up and down; mute; and a number pad for choosing channels. If your television and cable box date from the first Bush administration, this is the controller for you. (I mean that seriously - the Remote Commander is just what you need for resurrecting ancient televisions whose original controllers have gone to the dogs.) Any gadget made during the last five years, though, will not benefit from this remote. It includes no button to turn on an on-screen guide, for instance, no controls for recorded television shows, and no way to scroll through an on-screen list.
Two other remotes I tested were made by URC, a company whose name once stood for Universal Remote Control, but - like KFC and AARP - now stands for nothing. Both remotes were disappointing. Surprisingly, the more expensive model - the URC-R50, about $90 - was less useful and more annoying than the cheaper one, the URC-WR7, which is $20. I liked the shape and weight of this low-priced remote, and I liked that it included buttons for nearly every feature on my TV. But "nearly" is the key word; nearly every button isn't nearly enough. I found that the WR7 was missing a button for one of the crucial features on my newish television, an on-screen menu of options and settings. Without that button, I found myself often reaching for the original remote. And if I had to do that, why get a universal?
The more up-market URC-R50 was missing the same button. Or at least I think it was. I'm not sure because in addition to the standard rubber buttons, this remote includes an LCD screen that offers even more controls. At first this sounded great - a digital screen enables the remote to add functions that are specific to your television, and thus would seem to address the missing-button problem I'd had with other remotes.
But then I looked at the R50 and scratched my head. For my television, the remote's LCD screen offered several options with inscrutable labels that would have made more sense to a robot than a human. One on-screen button was called MTS, another DIGHD, another ANAHD. Huh? Did I dare press MTS to see whether it was the missing button I was looking for? The R50's directions did not address these issues. Fearful that it would summon some kind of demon from deep within the recesses of my flat-screen, I declined.
The R50 includes another feature found on several high-end remotes: macros. These allow you to press one button and have the remote perform a series of actions automatically. For example, you might create a "Watch TV" macro that will turn on your television, turn on your cable or satellite box, set your television's correct input setting, and perhaps display your on-screen guide. Unfortunately, I found it too much of a hassle to set up these macros.
Now we come to the best device in this bleak landscape: the Logitech Harmony One. Think of the Harmony One as the Mercedes-Benz of universal remotes. It is thoughtfully designed, well constructed and - at $170 - expensive. Because it is advanced, the Harmony One takes a bit more work to set up than other remotes. You must first install software on your Mac or PC, hook up the remote to your computer, then input the names and model numbers of all your gadgets (the other remotes I tried required me just to type in numerical codes or pick my devices from a list). It took about half an hour to set up the Harmony One for my entire home theater system.
I particularly liked the Harmony's ability to establish a series of macros (it calls them Activities) by itself. Even better, the Activities work most of the time. Press "Watch TV" on the Harmony's LCD screen and it arranges both your television and cable box to the right settings; press "Watch DVD," "Listen to Music" or any of several other tasks and it does those, too. It was so good at this that after using the Harmony for a couple of days, I thought I might be able to jettison all my other remotes.
But then the Harmony's tune began to sour. One persistent problem was the occasional omission of an important step in an Activity - in trying to set up my system to listen to music, say, it might forget to set the television's input to my CD player, or it might turn my TV off instead of on. The Harmony had some helpful on-screen prompts to address such difficulties when they arose, but they certainly did not endear the device to me. And for all its sophistication, the Harmony exhibited the same flaw I found with every other remote: it lacked certain significant functions for each of my devices.
There has been a move to address this shortcoming through smartphones and other touch-screen devices, and there is a certain logic to this idea: Your iPhone is connected to the Internet and its screen can be quickly changed to show any device's controls, so could it be the perfect universal remote?
In fact, numerous new gadgets have been rigged to be controlled with the iPhone, iPad or other touch-screen devices. Sonos, a maker of amazing high-end multiroom music systems, has created intuitive apps for touch devices that offer all the functionality of the company's dedicated remotes. I also tested out a few iPhone-enabled "home automation" devices that let you control your lights and other appliances from afar. Among them was the SmartLinc Insteon line, available from online retailer Smarthome for $129, plus about $50 extra for modules to control each device, which worked nicely. Among other things, it let me turn off the lights in the living room from way over in the bedroom using just my phone: think of it as the Clapper for the 21st century.
As a standard remote for television and home theater, though, I found the iPhone lacking. To control those entertainment gadgets from my phone, I used a $160 RedEye, a small console that sits in your living room and takes commands from the RedEye app. But the app required too many frustrating steps to find the correct codes for my television and other gadgets. Even worse, the app displayed the commands for each of my devices as an alphabetical list - I had to scroll down to find the Volume Up button, scroll back up to find the Channel Up button, scroll again to find the button for a specific channel.
Pretty soon I stopped scrolling, put down my phone, and reached for the zoo of remotes that have always clogged my coffee table. Sure, I'd love one good remote that would allow me to control everything. But that dream device isn't here yet.
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