Universal remotes, What do I really need?

Do you have 5 remotes either on the table or in a drawer?Do you need 2 remotes to change between cable and the DVD player?Well with today's systems this is pretty normal.If my wife had to deal with this she would never get to watch movies or play music.The key to this problem is a Universal Remote.But how do I decide what to get?When picking what kind of remote for your system you need to ask a few key questions.

1.Do I want to program it myself?

2.How many devices do I need to control?(TV,DVD,cable,xbox,receiver,etc)

3.Am I using new or old equipment?(older eq is tough to control with cheap remotes)

4.Do I want my remote to do other things?(web access,Control lights,feedback)

5.Do I want a touch panel or just hard buttons?

6.What is my budget?The guideline I use is 10-15% of the equipment price.

7.Are there other systems to control?(HVAC,Distributed Audio,Lighting,Security)

I use #6 as a guideline for my customers,but its not set in stone.Some of my customers spend very little as they really don't want all the bells and whistles.I go through a process to figure out their real needs.I have remotes broken down into 4 classes.

1.Consumer level.$100-300 This is the do it yourself class.Some of the remotes work OK and are even computer programmable.The Harmony remotes from Logitec are the best and most well known.To use the consumer level remotes successfully a decent knowledge of audio / video is required and your system needs to be running well to start.Cheap equipment will work against you on this type of remote as well.But you can always find a way to make anything work.Its all about how much effort you want to put out.

2.The next class is the entry level professional class of remotes.$500-1200.00.I use these for a lot of projects.A custom installer is needed for these and all the other remote classes.The custom installer is going to tune your system to work the best when programming one of these.Also they are for one room systems not whole house control.I use the MX 900 from Universal Remote a lot.It just always works,fits nice in the hands and programs fast.I charge $800.00 for the remote,rf module and programming.More on RF later.What you really get with this class of remote is bullet proof ir codes and in the hands of a good programmer flawless performance.

3.When you go to the next class of remotes its really more of a control system.$1200.00 and up.They are generally designed to control more than one system and require a medium amount of programming time to get right.Most are touch screens and have a central processor somewhere near the equipment. The next step in control reliability is reached as well since instead of ir codes it uses RS-232 computer code.Which is flawless.Two way feedback is also introduced in this class.And that means that the song your playing from the media server will show on the remote and the light level for the room will show up on the page.For this level I use remotes from RTI and cant say anything bad about the product.These are getting so good that I have stopped using the fourth class of system.Most of the remotes are hand held,but some tablets are available.

4.The top class are products like Crestron ,AMX and Vantage.If you are budget minded these are not for you.The programming time alone is tremendous.The number of parts and cost of the total system make this class for the really wealthy.You get what you pay for as you can make this type of system do anything.I mean anything.You also get a million style choices and colors.If you want to start the car any time you hit the 5th step on the stairs between 8am and 815 am then this is what you need.Voice recognition?All possible. But again you pay.

Above I mentioned RF.What it does is puts all the control behind closed doors.Standard IR remotes need to have line of sight and cant pass through a door.So all equipment needs to be visible.RF allows for control through doors and walls.No more visible equipment.All levels do this,but 2-4 do it much better.

Of course I love the RTI stuff ,but use the Universal remote stuff for most projects.Its just more cost effective.So chances are you fit into the level 2 remotes.Have kids under 13?Level 2 as things get broken.Building a dedicated theater and audio video distribution for the whole house?Level 3 is perfect. Hope this clears up your options a bit.