On February 2, 2007 at 20:36, Kevin C S said...
Actually, the remote doesn't "do all the work" for the
braindead exactly. A competent person has to do the initial
setup (anyone with any technical skill - which is most
people these days - can do this. To fine tune it is the
fun part. And you do have to understand your system in
order to set it up. And uh, letting the remote do all
the work is kind of it's purpose :)
Your basic questions have been answered but with regards
to the out of sync problems - if its set up properly it
shouldn't ever happen unless someone manually turns something
on/off or someone blocks the signal while it is being
sent. Even if it does, the remote has a "help" button
which will ask a few basic questions (ie is the TV on?)
and correct the problem.
I agree that to use the remote the way you want to isn't
the best option - you will end up with alot of screens
to scroll through for most AVR's for example. You'd honestly
be better off keeping the multiple remotes you have IMO.
I think once you used the activities you would like it
though - I look at it as a great convenience and time
saver/annoyance saver. Of course I know how to do it
all manually, but what's the point. It would be like
buying an automatic car then complaining that it isn't
standard ;)
Also, if you are concerned with doing out of the ordinary
things like listening to the radio don't worry about it.
You can either set up an activity for this (kind of silly
IMO), or what I do is enter an activity such as Watch
TV, then just go to device mode and manually turn on the
radio. I'm not sure what else you might be concerned
about with the remote "doing all the work".
My only concern with the remote doing all the work is that I want it to do it correctly EVERY TIME. If it can't, it's worthless to me. Even it it--"sometimes"--goes out of sync because one of the devices didn't receive a command, or somebody turned something on or off without using the remote.... I hope you can see where I'm heading with this, whether or not you feel the same way.
It's all about personal preference. I'm not exactly sure why you'd recommend that I keep using the original remotes. There are five of them and that would simply be stupid. And it's funny you mention having to scroll through lots of screens for AVRs because that's the other thing that I was concerned about. A Harmony remote can't possibly map all the buttons I need without using a bunch of pages on the LCD.
I appreciate all the responses that you guys provided. You have helped me FINALLY make a decision on what to purchase. I decided to go with an MX-500. I know you're probably thinking that's like a step down from a Harmony, but it'll allow me to map all the necessary buttons without any scrolling and it'll still allow me to use the same macros I would have used on a Harmoy. In truth, I can only think of one or two macros I would have needed anyway so it's perfect for me.
I like the looks of the Harmony remotes MUCH better, but you can't win them all.
