The universal remote control
January 14, 2007 11:46 amI don’t know about you but I received some great presents for Christmas. One of them I’d been meaning to buy for ages but I thought would make a nice easy present if I gave enough hints (you know what I really need…). Luckily I did receive it. Unluckily it is close to useless.
What I’m talking about is the so called universal remote control. You know when you’ve got a separate zapper for the TV, the video, the DVD, the digital box and potentially a few other devices too, you’re sat on the sofa relaxing, want to switch from this channel to that, adjust the volume or stop the film you’re watching and listen to a CD instead. Seems easy – except you can never find the right remote. So what a great device the universal remote contol should be, one remote to control everything.
But when you try and set it up you find that it’s anything but universal. I did manage to get it to talk to the video and the DVD player. But the TV? No. And the digital box? No. And I couldn’t do much with the devices it did talk to except switch them off, and what use is that?
I’m sure that if you have the right devices and the right universal remote control then everything works perfectly. But if you go for non-standard equipment like me, just don’t bother. It’s a bit like Esperanto, a nice idea but completely impractical – my advice is to chain your existing remotes to to the sofa instead.
This post was written by David
