Universal Remotes are a great idea. They're such a good idea I have 3 at home. My parents have two. One for each gadget? No, the universal remotes aren't universal, the programming codes are too hard to find, and when you do find the code it doesn't understand everything the gadgets can do. Like my TV. I don't have any universal remotes that change the video input, or control the PIP. For my VCR, none of the remotes allow me to access the menu to change scheduled recordings. $10 here, $20 there, what a waste of money.
They harmony is a complicated gadget. It runs an embedded OS. QNX as it turns out. The gadget could have run linux, it wasn't *that* memory tight, but they just had a better feel for QNX. You program it by plugging it into your PC, via USB cable, and browse on your PC to the harmony service centre, where you select all your gadgets, download the programming for your harmony, download, and disconnect. More or less, I've never used it, this is just what I've heard.
Here's my one-offs:
* why tether a remote? shouldn't it be cable free? why not make it wireless, or bluetooth, or IR , so you can keep it on walkabout forever and never have to tie it or yourself down.
* is anybody using the name TV Pal? "Harmony" is nice, but hasn't it been used for so many other things?
* I heard they tried out voice, but the gadget didn't know enough not to try to listen to the TV. Instead of voice, what about a gesture based interaction? Like the devices for the wii console? Or like the iphone. I'm thinking of my parents, who can't easily see the leetle teeny buttons on the remote.
* do you still have to point the device at the thing you want to control? I hate that. If there was a base station that was attached under the coffee table that pointed at the tv, cable, etc boxes all the time, and the remote was actually a bluetooth device connecting to the box under the coffee table, i wouldn't have to worry about pointing. the hand held device would still be the thing you connect to the PC to download device information. It might be the thing that controls the box under the coffee table. The box under the coffee table could be instead a flat panel mounted on a wall opposite the TV array.
* what about a scheduler? since the device controls the TV array, you could program watching and recording in a more convenient way. in conjunction with the box under the coffee table, which might be little more than an IR emitter, you could run a scheduler without having to set the remote carefully to point at your TV array.
* there are full linux machines at walmart for $200 or so. if they had an IR emitter, they could control the TV array too, couldn't they? http://www.everex.com/products
