Universal Remote Prices

[Tsunamii]

I have an old neoPronto that has done a great job at letting me customize the display. I have been looking to upgrade for awhile and this is what i dont get. Why are the prices as high and in some cases higher then a UMPC. I have not been a huge fan of the UMPC but when it comes down to prices it seems it may be better suited as a whole house remote with the functionality of a PC. So my question is, why are these remotes still so high in price?

 

[ssabripo]

tsunami,

there are TONS of options out there, but in all honesty, you can't get any better than one of these:


Home Theater Master MX-500
Simple, extremely versatile and powerful, and probably the best bang for the buck! I have that and it is quite easily the best $75 I've spent on my HT.

another option is:
Harmony 880 color screen
highly popular, and with this rebate, insanely low price!!! If I was in the market, I would snatch this in milliseconds!

 

[Tsunamii]

Thanks Ssabrior!! The logitech looks nice Id like to have the customization ability that the Neo has though. Though its still a sweet looking remote

 

[Haywood Jablomi]

I have the MX-850, which is an entirely different beast than the MX-500. It is an RF remote that can individually address each IR emitter on up to 16 RF base stations and can control up to 20 components. There are 10 buttons flanking an LCD screen that handle component selection and can store up to 40 custom commands for each device. Each of the 10 buttoms can fire a macro of up to 256 commands. You can put more than one macro on each button, because the macros are not limited to device selection. These macros can be hidden on unused menu pages and mapped to any key on the remote. Drill-downs for volume, mute, channel and numeric keypad are device specific. There is very little that this remote cannot do. It can be had through on-line gray-market dealers for as little as $270 with RF base station.

 

[jzac]

Mx-850

MX-850 is a superb product! It will handle anything you throw at it, and the software is sweet. You might have some hiccups with the RF piece if you buy it, especially if you have all your units in a entertainment center behind glass doors. I'm still working on it, and I have the 250 base... a lot of placement trials need to be done. For IR it is a beauty! All is all...its oustanding.

 

[ssabripo]

Oh by all means, I agree.....the MX-850 is THE remote to have, if you are looking for serious control.

I was trying to give the OP some bang for modest prices, since he emphasized cost....

 

[Ajax]

I agree with you both. The 500 is an EXCELLENT bang for the buck, and I own and love the 850. Incredible remote! Can't go wrong with either.

 

[Haywood Jablomi]

The MX-500 is definitely the bang-for-buck king. I bought the MX-850, because I have a multi-room multi-zone system and have components that take identical IR codes together in the same rack. The RF can be a tad flakey, but only in the same room and I don't have the new base station that with gain controls.

The Harmony remotes get the nod for easy setup. The MX-850 requires some work.

 

[MDS]

The MX-350 is the best bang for the buck unless you have more than 10 components to control as it is also RF capable with addressable emitters. Unlike the 850 however, it has to be programmed directly - there is no pc programmability.

If you need control of more than 10 components, then the MX-650 is the best choice if you don't care about pc programmability; otherwise go all out and get the 850.

IMO, The MX-350/650/850 improve on the button layout of the MX-500 because the select button in the center of the cursor pad is now a real button. They also have more available LCD buttons than the MX-500 - 8 pages of 5 for a total of 40 vs 2 pages of 10 for a total of 20 on the MX-500. The MX-500 was a great remote, but I now have an MX-350 and actually like it better.

 

[Johnd]

In my opinion, nothing beats a Pronto if you want "unlimited" programming options...nothing. If you have a neo (the original), I don't know why you would look at anything else.

To answer your question, I think the reason for the price being so high is the abilities built into them. The neo is a dinosaur by today's standards (by some accounts, so am I). When you can get the 7000 for about $450.00 and the 7500 for about $650.00, I don't think that's unreasonable. But that's a relative term.

 

[Eddie Horton]

I got the MX-700 from a company called bluedo.com about a year and a half ago. If you don't need RF, it's great and can do anything. The price wasn't bad, either. Some of the newer ones seem a bit overpriced to me, but capable units can be had at bang-for-the-buck prices.

 

[Haywood Jablomi]

I had an MX-700 before I got the MX-850. They are basically the same, except the MX-850 is RF and has a separate select button in the middle of the thumb pad.

 

[ZoFo]

I have the MX-700 and got it for $225, but....

When you can get a laptop computer for about the same price of a higher end Universal Remote; they are asking too much!

When I first started looking at the higher end Remotes I was shocked that they were priced as much as a laptop computer; isn't there software available that will allow you to use your PC as a remote? Why spend $1,000 plus for a touch-screen with icons when you can have a PC that will do that and more?

 

[Johnd]

I agree with you to some extent, but Pronto's aren't for everybody. They are generally for those with higher end equipment that can't get what they want out of a Harmony (or other).

 

[loserwife]

I have an older Pronto Pro with the RF receiver. I love it. Now that it's programmed it's easy. Unless you go to the large format touch screens or the newer Prontos you won't get much more "bang for the buck". Now days you can pick one up on Ebay for cheap. As in my case, you can pick one up from somebody who doesn't want to spend the time learning how to use it. It does take some time to get used to the graphics options and formats. But you can place just about any image or logo on the screen you want. You can use the company logo as the button for your components, use the THX symbol for a button, network logos for buttons, etc. You can even download others peoples setups and use the parts you like.

 

[majorloser]

What she said.........................

 

[mustang_steve]

Rat Shack 15-2138 Kameleon 8-in-1. Couldn't be happier with it.

given it was $90, but that's not too bad at all.

 

[Tsunamii]

I broke down and got the Hrmny 890 so I can still use the RF. I am hearing good things so far on it. $250 on ebay good times...