I recently received the MX-500 and of all the universal remotes I own (pronto, one for all, etc.), this is by far the best one! There is only one thing I have not been able to do. As part of a macro, I'd like to DIM all of the lights in the room. The 20 steps allowed by the macro are not enough to dim the lights. I am using the standard (cheap) x10 dimmers that do not have the memory positions.

I was wondering if I can accomplish this through the use of the ACTIVE HOME kit. I would like to know if I can use this kit to setup some macros on its control unit, and then trigger those macros with a single IR command. Anyone have any experience with this kit? Can you trigger the macros on the ACTIVE HOME control unit using a single IR command? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Active Home has a macro feature which is downloaded into the interface - but it doesn't work with IR. I take it you have an IR 543 to convert IR to RF? If so, that would go down the powerline. Then, you could use an x10 address to dim the lights the way you want. Hope this helps.

The Active Home would work fine for what you are wanting it to do. The limitations with Active Home is that the timers are not reliable, and you can only store a limited # of macros in it. I currently have 10 (with around 6 switches per macro), when I add an 11th, the do not become reliable.

Tony