what product version is the HP ipac your talking about, i'm thinking about getting one

takemetoyourtoaster

touch screen remotes are terrible. you can't tell what button you're pressing without looking at it, more important with a remote than the iphone!

the only problem with the Harmony 890 I have was the price I paid to get it.

Kevinv

@Ben: setting up for failure, my friend.

@TedTheShred: don't you get it? they get free gadgets to play with all day. they have moved on to wanting things that don't exist.

oo0cyst0oo

And most importantly a button to turn on my wife!

Ben

Maybe you should shop in the Beyond section of Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

Hardcore1

Of course, when you lose or break this One Remote, your whole system stalls out, like Sauron after the One Ring gets burned.

Pope John Peeps II

I always wanted to see a touchscreen remote for a TV that downloads the guide of programs available. That way you just touch the screen on a particular program, and it switches to the desired channel. It'd be great if something like this could even be done with some kind of iPhone application.

Jawbreaker4Fs

This is why I keep my old HP ipaq, cause new PDA's have droped IR, because some idiot was like lets just sync with bluetooth no need for IR. And then I cant control everything. But It really did control almost everything, I would even use it to play with TV's in public places, I even used it to learn the laser tag signal, and would blast everyone at once because it had a much more powerful beam, and the PDA cost me less than 1/2 of what a fancy universal remote that does less.

mmoylan

Make up your minds Giz. Do you want one remote to control everything or one remote because you have one box that does everything?

TedTheShred

How about this as an ap for the iPhone - seriously, it already has a touch screen, Wifi and Bluetooth. All you need is a bluetooth-ir device with IR Blasters located near your A/V Rack. Had this discussion a few days ago with friends about what aps we want to see for the iPhone.

Also looking for a Mobipocket reader on the iPhone so I can finally retire my Palm T/X

Canoehead

It also needs to control the girlfriend

ab3

good luck with all of this. you are going to be one dissapointed little man on christmas morn.

kingmophat

...And be able to open peoples garage's and start peoples cars remotely. Trigger alarms, and general mayhem. The hax0r's holy grail kiidy script device. I'll take 4 please.

MagnoliaBoy

The biggest problem with the current generation of remote controls is that they are assumption based and only go one way. You press the "1" key and the command is send out but noting will actually check to see if it is done.

My friend had a very expensive remote control system installed in his mansion. This "universal" system would send out pre-learned remote control signals to a range of devices. But it doesn't work because there are no feedback loops.

Many years ago I designed a remote that uses two way communication. The device tells the remote what is going on and the remote tells the device what to do.
It would not use touch screens because indeed they suck but more a mini ATM machine approach.

A small display with line select buttons on either side would provide information, menu's, selection options, current playing MP3 and so on. Scroll wheels on both sides of the remote will provide scroll type selection, volume control, and whatever else needs a value set.

Realistically the remote receiver is a computer that on it's turn will issue what ever commands are required to the various devices.

I'd be such a fun project to work on. Come on who will hire me to take this design further?

Dinther Product Design Ltd vandinther@gmail.com

Dinther

Crestron and a custom installer can probably get you pretty close to that. for you tea pot you could have it plugged into a module thats controlled via RF. the remote will be able to turn that on and off. i think they are pretty customizable as to what you want displayed and how its displayed. you would need a motor attaced to another RF module that would control if your shower knob turned left or right. I didnt see a budget listed but im sure some super rich people have had remotes programmed to do some pretty silly things already.

irfan

Let's throw in a tricorder while we're at it. Combine all the typical home inspector gadgets into a single device (thermal scan, moisture meter, thermometer, hygrometer, emf meter, rf meter, CO sniffer, combustible gas sniffer, uv meter, circuit analyzer, gcfi tester, wind speed meter, etc.).

mkant

URC MX-3000. Hell of a lot cheaper than Crestron or AMX and is just as customizable. It will control anything that takes an ir signal, also has an rf station as well.
It has thousands of thousands of learned codes in it, and it will learn from anything.

[www.universal-remote.com]

I've sold about 12-13 of these to clients over the last two years or so and they all work wonderfully. Yes it takes work to get everything perfect, but at least you have the ability to customize everything!

JoeStalin

I still want a universal remote that works ultra-well with Tivo. I like Tivo's remote, and the universal remotes that I've seen *try* to include Tivo/DVR functions, but it's never as elegant as the tivo remote. (If anyone knows of such a remote, let me know!)

schwnj

ditto on the touchscreens-are-terrible. I had a ts universal remote, and it was a pain.

I got a harmony 790 off woot, and it does the trick nicely. I even trained it to remote fire my camera.

necrolingua

As soon as someone makes this and you buy it for $1000 you will find that it freezes, or doesn't put out enough of a signal to control stuff reliably yada yada.... simply put you won't be happy.

I am pretty happy with my harmony 890, however it's not without flaws.

hagrun