September 2005
Face it: most universal remotes are more trouble than they're worth. Sure, the goal of reducing clutter by having a single unit control several components is a worthy one. But in practice, most of them are either too limited in scope, or too complicated to configure and use. Fortunately, there are some exceptions: if you're willing to spend a few -- all right, quite a few -- bucks some of the more recent high-end models offer an impressive combination of power and simplicity. They do so by grouping commands not by component, but rather by activity.
This means that to, say, watch a movie on DVD, you don't push separate buttons to turn on the TV, DVD player, and home theater, and then more buttons to make sure the various sources and inputs are in sync. Instead, you invoke a single "Watch DVD" command and the remote responds by sending the appropriate series of signals. (Of course, in addition to "macros," these remotes can send individual commands to any of the devices whose dedicated remotes they've been set to emulate.)
The key to making such a remote do its fancy dance is the initial programming. During that process you tell it about your audio and video components, and define the activities it's meant to perform. With some remotes, the setup is done on the manufacturer's web site, and the results are downloaded to the remote. Others, such as the fabulous $499 Philips RC9800i, are programmed in a stand-alone mode, drawing from an internal database of commands. That database is be updated, as needed, while the RC9800i is in its USB-connected charging cradle.
The RC9800i is operated with highly readable 3.5-inch touchscreen and a set of backlit hardware controls. During the setup process you select the room or rooms to be controlled, and then create a list of components in each room. The command set for each component can be selected via infrared-based recognition (using the original remote), an autoscan process during which a series of signals is sent to the component, or -- if neither of those does the trick -- a lengthy "select-and-try" process. (This method-of-last-resort is only needed if you have some very unusual components.) The recognition-based selection method doesn't require the RC9800i to physically learn each button on the original remote. Rather, it uses a few signals from the original to select that the device's entire command set. We had some problems getting the RC9800i to "see" the signal from our original remotes using the recognition method. In those cases, autoscan worked to identify the proper command set.
Beyond simply defining the components, the setup process determines how each is hooked up to one another. That information is used to enable the RC9800i's activity-based operation. Once the setup process is complete, all of the defined activities are invoked by just a couple of taps on the RC9800i's touchscreen. It works perfectly, and so do the hardware controls that are the easiest way to control individual components. These include channel and volume toggles, a round four-way navigation ring surrounding an "OK" selector button, and individual page, mute, home, and back buttons. The buttons' backlighting, and the touchscreen's adjustable brightness, make it easy to operate the remote in any light.
Now, activity-based control and simple setup are nice to have, but those attributes are available elsewhere for way less than the RC9800i's price. Fortunately, the extra dough you'll pay for the RC9800i buys a couple of very interesting extras, both of which take advantage of the device's onboard WiFi capability. The first is a subscription-based electronic program guide (the first year is free) that places a searchable program grid on the RC9800i's screen. The guide is updated via the web, and streamed to the remote over the WiFi network. This will be most useful to those whose TV service doesn't include an interactive grid, and who now rely on either printed listings or a scrolled guide on the TV.
The second of the RC9800i's WiFi-based features shines when one or more of your AV components is connected to the network so that it can accept streaming media. With the supplied Philips media management/server software installed on the host PC, the RC9800i's screen can be used to select music, video, and images for streaming to those connected components.
Viewed solely as a universal remote, Philips' RC9800i can't be considered a bargain unless you've still got some dough left over from selling Yahoo! at its peak. However, when considered as the control center for what Philips is calling connectedplanet, the price is not only justifiable, but quite reasonable.