Thanks for your thoughts about the iPad as a remote.

I suppose part of my thinking behind the iPad was that they are relatively cheap and we can just add / replace it if needed. I'm not that hung up on hard buttons, I do like them personally, but I don't think its a defining issue. The kids are growing up in a soft button world, and therefore this solution may be better.

There seem to be a number of different companies in Australia offering solutions now ... here are a couple that I found:

Uremote - [Link: trade.connectedhometechnology.com]

Command Fusion - http://www.commandfusion.com.au

Bitwise - [Link: trade.connectedhometechnology.com]