A few months ago I bought a new universal remote control from Harmony, and it is absolutely the best remote control I have ever used. I bought the SST-659, which from a physical standpoint is their best remote, though the SST-768 is more tweakable. All the extra tweaking stuff is purely software differences though, and if I really wanted to tweak it I am sure I could fiddle with the firmware, but thats not the point.
These guys did some really novel things with a remote. First off, they determined that people do not control a component, they perform an activity. So instead of selecting the DVD player to control playback, and then switching the remote to stereo receiver to fiddle with the sound, it knows that during my DVD playback activity that the sound buttons need to send signals to the stereo receiver, and the other buttons have to send things to the DVD player.
They also have a remarkably sophisticated state engine. High end AV gear uses what are known as discrete codes. In other words, there is a separate infrared signal for "On" and for "Off" . Lower end gear is simpler, it just sends a "Toggle" signal which changes it. The problem with that is that in order to switch it to a fixed setting you need to know what the current settings are. This is especially bad when switching video inputs. The harmony remote understands all these states, and it keeps a state table inside of itself, so that even if you do not have discrete codes it can make all the transitions seamlessly.
Finally the absolute best thing about it is how it is programmed. Instead of some arcane manual or being a standard learning remote, it is programmed online. You go to their website and select your peripherals from their database. It automatically builds activity profiles and all the state information for you. Then you download it to your remote via USB. If you have a device it has never seen you can simply plug record the events and their uploaded into the online DB for everyone else. It had my TV, DVD player, VCR, and stereo receiver in the online DB, as well as several highend AV switches (Zektor) I have been looking at buying. Its so much eaiser to configure than any other remote I have dealt with and way more flexible. A bit pricey, but definitely worth it.
Posted by louis at March 16, 2004 10:23 PM | TrackBackthis has nothing to do with your post, but geoff just emailed me and told me that you ordered ten of my books and i don't have your email. you're fucking insane! but. thanks.
andreaa.