Something like Harmony that has a "learning" ability is much desired, which is not available in the phones or tablets.
Yup, a Harmony can do that and more:
-A harmony has mode buttons that run macros. So say you want to play a Blu Ray, one button called "Watch a Movie" turns on the tv and puts it on the right input, turns on the AV receiver and puts it on the right input, turns on the blu ray player, etc. It can make a very complicated setup with many pieces be simple to the end user. You can fine tune what turns on and what doesn't and in what order.
I don't see how people who have wives/parents live without this personally. Lots of phone calls I guess.
-Once it is in a mode different buttons in that mode can control different things. So for the "Watch a Movie" mode, the pause and play buttons control the Blu Ray player while the volume buttons control the AV receiver. Again, it makes a complicated AV setup braindead easy to use.
-It can learn IR from almost anything, and has a database that is really large (everything I have had plus MCE remotes are all in there).
-I can run combos of commands outside of input switching. For example, I have a "3D" button I programmed that forces my tv into 3D mode, waits a second, hits the enter button on the option that always comes up when I force it into that mode, and then hits enter on the menu after that. For another example, I have a button that closes every way possible you can for emulators (because some are ESC, some are ctrl+W, etc.) to make that more seamless when I launch them on my HTPC. Basically I can turn any AV task, no matter how mundane, into a single button press.
Facebook
Twitter