I believe that the number of people who I describe above is significantly larger. You didn't address any of that...
Significantly larger than people who just use the regular remote by itself? Um okay
My apologies, but I still don't understand (or think I've even heard) your counterargument. Because again, when you say things like this, it makes me think that your proposal is that it's better to have 4 remote controls on a coffee table without a few extra buttons on them than it is to add a few buttons on there with the possibility that more homes will have a single remote on their table.
I suppose I was overstating, and should have said that it would open the
possibility that more average consumers could sufficiently program their inexpensive universal remotes. You're probably right that most of those additional people still wouldn't take advantage of it. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't give them the option. There's plenty that these sets are capable of that 95% of users will never use (most never even change the picture settings on their HDTVs), but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be given the option...
Sorry, but you're misunderstanding me. I meant they won't provide you with this information. Do you know of any major company that does?
Sony do provide Pronto codes for at least one of their displays.
Yeah, I came across that when I was trying to find my link. That's a single, minor line of sets from four to five years ago.
Most manufacturers provide their IR codes in a document or in a format usable by a remote such as a Pronto. Most will, upon request, provide discrete codes if they exist. You just have to write to them and ask.
I've not seen this myself. Don't get me wrong, I'd like that. I've certainly never seen IR codes included in documentation. Do you have an example of that?
The reason I said it was a bad move wasn't because I was specifically talking about the ON/OFF scenario. That's very basic, but there are tons of other possible discrete commands which don't belong on the standard remote. Can you imagine every possible discrete input on a small remote?
My apologies, I definitely didn't make this clear enough in my early arguments. I don't think there should be a button for every possible discrete code that could be sent to a device. You'd end up with a receiver that had 100 buttons on it. But I remain unconvinced why there shouldn't be discrete on/off. This seems essential to me. So much so that it's one of the top three criteria I set when looking for a new receiver. It was important enough that I wouldn't get one that didn't have it.
Aside from on/off, the only discretes I need to create a decent macro are inputs, and possibly something that will set the receiver's audio to some sort of auto-decode mode.
Some remotes do offer this functionality, but it's one of the reasons people replace stock remotes - button overload.
I tend to think this is a very small number of people. I think if they're going to the trouble of replacing a remote, they're doing it to get a remote that replaces several remotes. That is, unless they're getting one of those Fischer Price-looking things with 15 buttons on it. Otherwise, I haven't seen a programmable remote in the store with fewer buttons than you'd find on most included remote controls. I think the main problem with most receiver-bundled remote controls is simply the poor design of the button layouts. I've seen very few of those remotes that were actually usable...
You can also get remote codes quite easily for almost anything via Remote Central.
As much as I love Remote Central, I simply haven't found this to be the case. "Many devices," sure, but I can't tell you how often I run into brick walls trying to find just discrete on/off for a device for a client.
The most common is cable boxes. Frankly, I'm not sure why some of these even need to turn off, but they do, and there's no discrete codes for any of the ones in my area. There are tricks to deal with devices like this, but they're not great or foolproof, and add time to macros.
At the same time, a universal remote is somewhat geeky and until the Harmony line, every consumer-level universal was pretty much device oriented with little to no automation. Maybe a couple of marco keys and the ability to punch-through volume and power buttons.
This is true. Even still, the cheap universals (like
this one) aren't fantastic at automation, but typically let you assign a healthy number of macros. But they're perfectly fine for my clients, who couldn't program them without my help and my equipment (at least in the current state of discrete codes
).
If the codes aren't already part of the database of that $25 remote then you really need to blame the maker of that remote.
What? This doesn't make sense to me. Why would I blame them? Like I said, those codes are hard to get, and the high-end remotes don't have them either. Why else would people put the ones that
are available on Remote Central? Sorry, but this is crazy talk...
It's why the Harmony, URC and Pronto databases include a TON of discrete commands. Harmony uses them by default if they exist for your device (forget for a moment that their DB is extremely dirty right now
)
Again, I simply have not seen this. First, where is this "Pronto database?" I haven't seen one. And I suppose things might have changed since I owned my Harmony remote, but when I had it it didn't find one single discrete code for any of my devices. How would you know if it did, anyway? Isn't the point of the Harmony that you don't think about those things?
For most people, on an OEM remote, it's easier to have a single button for ON/OFF. It matches the toggle button usually found on the device itself. One extra button means losing the toggle. That's OK for some remotes. But you can't very well put discrete commands for all discrete functions on an OEM remote, even though they're amazingly useful when putting together an automation solution, including setting up an activity on a universal remote.
You may be right, but I think people can wrap their minds around it. I think there's a great many dense people out there, but I do think they can tell the difference between "on" and "off"