Alternative to Philips Pronto remotes?

[Ichinisan]

I'm looking for a cheapter alternative to the Phillips Pronto line of universal, programmable, learning remotes. It absolutely must have a large touch screen with a customizable interface. Preferably, internal rechargable batteries with a charging cradle. Physical "hard" buttons are useless to me, so I would prefer that a remote be not much more than a large touch screen.

Any ideas?

 

[Shagga]

A tad expensive but I have the Pronto Pro RU980 which is an excellent remote, however not woth the £600 I paid for it!. I think you will be hard pressed to find something other than the Pronto at a reasonable price (new that is) You may be able to pick up a Meridian or something like that on one of the auction/refurb sites.

 

[SSibalNom]

you could always get a pda.... and use the TV remote u can DL for it

 

[bluntman]

I don't think you'll be able to find anything cheaper than the Pronto if you are looking for one with a customizable interface. Check out Remote Central for reviews and alternatives.

 

[Ichinisan]

From what I hear, PDA's have terrible range. I heard that you have to be right next to your television or other device for the PDA software to work.

Also, I think that you have to pay like $50-$100 just for the software, but it's still better than $500-$1000 for a Philips Pronto. Is there an open-source alternative?

Does anyone know of a modification to increase the intensity of the IrDA emitter?

 

[mikecel79]

Originally posted by: Ichinisan
From what I hear, PDA's have terrible range. I heard that you have to be right next to your television or other device for the PDA software to work.

Also, I think that you have to pay like $50-$100 just for the software, but it's still better than $500-$1000 for a Philips Pronto. Is there an open-source alternative?

Does anyone know of a modification to increase the intensity of the IrDA emitter?

I think this was true of some of the earlier PDAs (Palm III, V, VII) but I think later models came with much stronger IrDa transmitters.

 

[myocardia]

What's wrong with the $180-200 Sony touch-screen remote? My brother has one, and it's killer.

 

[Maverick]

Originally posted by: myocardia
What's wrong with the $180-200 Sony touch-screen remote? My brother has one, and it's killer.

its massive...you can't use it one handed unless you're a giant

 

[bluntman]

Originally posted by: myocardia
What's wrong with the $180-200 Sony touch-screen remote? My brother has one, and it's killer.

Agreed, there's nothing wrong with it, but as Maverick mentioned it is rather large, the screen isn't customizable (like the Pronto) and, from what I remember, it only has room for 4 macros. Otherwise, it's a great remote, I still use it in my bedroom hometheater.

 

[Ichinisan]

If I can't design the interface from scratch, it's pretty-much useless to me.

I can't fathom why engineers think it's easier or better to make LCD's with fixed shapes rather than a dot-matrix array that you can draw anything on

 

[jerome12345]

sony has one thats really cool looking where the buttons are on a touchpad screen, but i bet its expensive too... im too lazy to check

 

[bluntman]

Originally posted by: jerome12345
sony has one thats really cool looking where the buttons are on a touchpad screen, but i bet its expensive too... im too lazy to check

That's the one we're talking about, the older RM-AV2000 and its newer versions.

 

[thorin]

Have you thought of something like the OneForAll Kameleon? It's not quite as advanced as what you described but it can control up to 8 devices, it learns, and does macros.

Thorin

 

[cmp1223]

Are you sure you don't want any physical buttons? I would at least have a few for the basics- channel, volume, power, input select. i have used those LCD remotes and (i know it a remote) its labor intensive. You got to look right at it, turn the backlight on, and press the button. And it cakes up with oils and such. With real buttons, you can get some muscle memory and you don't have to look, which trust me is alot harder with an LCD because you slide across all the other buttons too and it messes up.

 

[bluntman]

Hard buttons are overrated. That's the beauty of the Pronto, the volume, channel, mute buttons and two unnamed buttons are hard buttons but are user assignable with any command or macro that you wish; everything else is on the LCD and can pretty much do anything and look any way you'd like. The only thing holding you back is your imagination and the amount of memory in the remote.

 

[Maverick]

I love my home theater master MX500...one of the best purchases I've made. I've even programmed it to control my xbox.

 

[Ichinisan]

How does this PDA look? It's only $200!

The description makes it sound like the IrDA feature is only for sharing data with other PDA's of the exact same type (which I doubt). Anyway, if it was designed only for the feature they mention, it is probably a low-power emitter with awful range.

Does anyone know anything about this?

 

[GoSharks]

the IrDa on my clie T415 works to about 15-20ft.

look at the MX500 again... it has an LCD along with lots and lots of hard buttons. why soft when you can have hard.

 

[Ichinisan]

Originally posted by: GOSHARKS
look at the MX500 again... it has an LCD along with lots and lots of hard buttons. why soft when you can have hard.

With the variety of devices that I will be controlling, there will not be adequate captions on the buttons. Also, most buttons would be un-used for most devices, and I'll have to settle for labels that "sorta" describe the function.

Originally posted by: GOSHARKS
the IrDa on my clie T415 works to about 15-20ft.

Awesome!