Getting Remotes Under Control

Forbes
By Arik Hesseldahl


October 20, 2003

www.forbes.com

NEW YORK - One pitfall of having a modern home entertainment system is the number of remote controls that accumulate over time.

There's the remote for the TV, the cable or satellite box, the DVD player, the VCR, the Tivo (nasdaq: TIVO - news - people ), the stereo tuner-amplifier, the CD player. It doesn't take long.

To cut that number down to a manageable level, there's been a number of "universal" remote controls on the market over the years, some better than others. One company behind many of them is Universal Electronics (nasdaq: UEIC - news - people ). Chances are you already have one of its remotes in your home, either from cable or satellite TV boxes, or from some other appliance. It makes remotes for several electronics manufacturers.

But it also sells standalone universal remotes under the One For All brand. We've been using one of its latest remotes, a device called the Kameleon, for several weeks now.

The Kameleon differs from regular remotes in that it doesn't have traditional buttons. Instead, it had a smooth blue surface that gives a minimalist appearance. Move the remote just a bit and the buttons light up under the blue skin and then fade away after a few seconds.

It's an interesting design--that is, if you like blue things in your living room. But using it feels different from other remotes. It's a bit awkward at first trying to negotiate the buttons without much tactile feedback. If you're used to using a remote without having to look at it, the Kameleon almost requires that you look it before hitting anything, as the chances of hitting the wrong button are much higher. As we said, the buttons fade away after a few seconds, so if you intend to look at them for very long, you have to shake the remote to keep the buttons lit.

Otherwise, operation is pretty simple. One set of animated buttons at the top designates which appliance you intend to control. Select the TV set and the appropriate buttons light up while the others go dark. Select the VCR, and the same thing happens.

The control comes with a big manual that lists the many codes for different appliances. Often, programming the remote with those codes works out just fine. But sometimes it doesn't work quite so easily. We found an older JVC tabletop stereo unit we use at home didn't accept any of the codes in the manual.

When that happens you have to point the respective remotes at each other and teach the new one the old one's commands. This is a pretty straightforward process. But if you've lost the remote to the older unit in the first place, it can only add to the frustration. The remote has a "search" function whereby it can try many different codes for your device until it works. That didn't work in our case. Luckily we had the old remote handy, and found the Kameleon's learning capability to be excellent.

One nice feature, which we didn't get to test, is a series of commands created for Tivo-type PVRs among the eight devices it can control.

Overall, we liked the Kameleon, despite the tricky buttons. It's selling at Best Buy (nyse: BBY - news - people ), Circuit City (nyse: CC - news - people ) and Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) for a price of about $90.