Episode 4: Universal Remotes Are Stupid

I don't have a home theater system. In fact, I'm not sure I'll ever have a home theater system - but maybe I will. That is not the point I want to make today. The point I want to make today is that universal remotes, such as those which control your entire home theater are complete gimmicks. I'm not talking about those cheap $10 or $15 RCA universal remotes that you get to replace a remote when it breaks. I'm talking about these $300 monstrosities we see at Best Buy with some geek ass 40-year old gawking at it going "Oh yeah baby I'm gonna take you home right now and stroke you". These remotes are "designed" to be able to connect to the internet and download all the buttons and "popular features and controls" of all the aspects of your home theater whatever they may be; the ultimate goal then being the elimination of your 4 of 5 remotes that you need to use in order to watch a DVD, or whatever.

So, let's just assume that the average person has 5 remotes (not true). One for the TV, one for a DVD player, one for a speaker system, maybe one for a digital cable box, and one for a ceiling fan that they just NEED to have on in order to watch TV. Now, lets take into consideration what these remotes do, by default. I know for a fact that you can program your digital cable remote to turn on your TV and go to the appropriate inputs. One remote eliminated, we're down to 4 now. This digital cable remote also contains buttons for AUX, etc on the top which you could likely use to control the volume of your home theater, which could possibly get you down to 3 remotes, but lets just assume for the time being that you can't do that.

So you have 4 remotes... and you want to watch a DVD. You pick up the remote for the TV or digital box and turn the TV on and go to the input. Then you put it down. Then you use the DVD remote and start the DVD. Then you use the reciever remote to adjust the volume. OH MY GOD WAS THAT SO HARD? No, seriously, I want to know if that was hard because to be that just sounded FUCKING EASY AS HELL.

So now lets assume you have one of these fancy remotes. The first time you get it you need to plug it into your computer. Now, a lot of people buying these usiversal remotes are probably trying to get away from the complexity of using multiple remotes. Are these average people really so good at using computers, what I would consider to be a much more complicated task, in order to load all the information required into the remote....

Anyways, so you get all the stuff into the remote. Now whether or not is it easier to control your system is up for debate. All the buttons are in different places than the usual remotes. I feel like a large important part of remote control design is that the buttons are in logical places. When you are controlling many different devices these buttons can not be in the same place. For example when using a dvd remote you would want the play pause etc buttons to be in the most logical place because they are the buttons you will most often press. However, on a TV remote you would probably want the channel buttons, volume buttons, or the number buttons to be in the most logical place, which on the two separate remotes is probably somewhere near the top or center. On a universal remote there can not possible be play buttons and TV control buttons in the same spot, so one of the button sets is going to suffer.

Granted, once you learn all about your new universal remote it may be slightly faster to operate, but is it really worth it? You just spent a few hundred dollars on that thing. And it's just as likely to get lost or break than any one of those other $10 remotes. I could buy 30 replacement remotes for those other products for the price that you just bought your single $300 universal remote.

So are universal remotes "helpful", maybe a little. Are they necessary, no. Are they expensive, hell yes. Are they stupid, of course.