Lean Back Technology for your HTPC!

So, you’ve got this fancy new HTPC, but how do you use it?  Well, I thought we would take a look at the various options for controlling your HTPC.  I am splitting this post into a two part series covering both keyboard and mice, plus wand style solutions.  In the first post of this series, I covered a few options for keyboards and mice.  This time, I will spend a little time covering the wand style remotes.  Like previous posts on technology, products covered are limited to what I had immediately available — not intended to cover all the different options out there. Likewise, this is not intended to be a review of all the different solutions, just an introduction to a few available products. 

I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a few of these different solutions for testing thanks to our technology partners.  As such, I brought these devices home for a brief period so I could see how my family liked them. I know, I said I should never use my family as beta testers, but this seemed a little different and I felt it would be more useful to provide their feedback in addition to mine to provide a wider cross section of user experiences. More about their responses later on. 

The ultimate goal of the HTPC for me is that I would never have need of a keyboard or mouse and that I could do everything with a remote in hand.  As covered in the “What Can an HTPC Do?” series (part 1 and part 2), I showed you a lot of what you can do with just a remote in hand.  So, it made a lot of sense to try out a few different wand style remotes and see how well they get along with Windows® Media Center.
 
Technology
Similar to technology used for wireless keyboards, wand style remotes leverage infrared (IR), radio frequency (RF) and Bluetooth (BT) based technologies.  The difference can impact cost, reliability, line of sight, distance, and other factors.  IR solutions are typically the cheapest solutions to implement and the most common.  However, RF and BT technologies are starting to show up more in remote controls as well.  

Some remotes have integrated cursor control via a track ball or gyro (like a Wii controller). Now, I personally feel that the integrated solution is a really nice feature that eliminates the need for a separate mouse, but if most of your time is spent inside applications like Media Center, then this may be less important.  

Other features found in some remotes are touch screens and rechargeable batteries.  These can be a nice touch (no pun intended) as the screens can make some functions easier to use.  The recharging station is often handy and can save the consumer the hassle of changing batteries and can also be more convenient.  This is especially true when the remote has a screen on it as well since that screen can drain the battery pretty quickly.  Not all remotes offer recharging stations so be sure to check the package before making your purchase if that is important to you.

Some vendors will include software applications and drivers with their remotes.  Some of these applications can be useful for media playback, programming hotkeys and buttons, etc. These may also automatically check for version updates for you, but this can also happen at less than ideal times.  However, you often have control over when these updates should or should not take place.  So, let’s look at a few different solutions (in no particular order). 

nMedia PC
One of the first RF remotes I tried was the remote with the nMedia PC RF keyboard and remote combo package.   

This has almost a pistol grip type feel.  If feels very solid in construction with a rubberized coating. It offers a host of buttons for different operations along with an integrated track ball for cursor control.  The array of buttons can be a little daunting as your fingers navigate their way around the remote, but with practice you will quickly learn where the most used buttons are located and be using them without looking.  Using the trackball can take a little practice, especially if you are more familiar using a full size mouse in a desktop environment, but again it does not take long to get accustomed to the trackball.  As mentioned, cursor control can add a nice touch when you leave the Media Center environment and have to navigate the desktop screen — having that trackball available can really add value.  The included USB RF receiver is nice and eliminates the need for line of sight. There is an option to bundle the keyboard with a remote as well so this option can be a great, cost effective solution for those on a tight budget.

Microsoft
Another interesting solution comes from Microsoft. Microsoft has a basic IR Media Center remote control with a USB receiver.  This has a very comfortable feel in the hand.  Most of the buttons are large and easy to find.  Microsoft also used back lighting on some of the more commonly used buttons (Play, Pause, FF, Rew, etc.) so they are easier to find in low light situations.  However, they only light up after an initial button press and then stay lit for about 5 seconds or so.  It has a clearly labeled “Green Button” so you can quickly launch Media Center or return to the main menu if already in Media Center.  The quick access Guide button will pull up your EPG with ease (assuming you have a TV tuner installed), and the channel up/down and volume up/down all work as you would expect from a typical wand style remote.  It also has the IR receiver (via USB connection) on an extended cable so you can easily route the receiver to just about any location (within reason).

While it does not offer cursor control, there is a 3rd party application that you can install that is supposed to provide that type of functionality, though I did not try it at the time of this posting.  

Gyration
Gyration offers a couple of remote control solutions for the HTPC.  They initially offered their Media Center Remote product, but are now offering a second remote called the Air Music Remote.  The difference between the two remotes is that the Air Music Remote offers an LCD screen that can be used to navigate to music options.  They both use 2.4Ghz RF technology so line of sight is not an issue. Range seems to be pretty good as well, though admittedly, my couch is only about 12 feet from the remote.  I would recommend using a USB extension cable to get the USB receiver out from behind the metal chassis — it does help improve the responsiveness of the remote. 

Unfortunately, I did not have access to the Air Music remote to give it a try but I am currently using the Media Center remote.  The Gyration remote works very well for Media Center navigation and operation.  What makes the remote interesting for me is the integrated cursor control.  It does take some getting used to, but once you do, it works very nicely.  The “Green Button” along with navigation control works well inside Media Center and by adding cursor control, so I can easily exit Media Center, open a browser window and quickly navigate my bookmarked sites. I can watch Internet streaming TV content without ever picking up a keyboard.  Buttons are large enough to find easily by touch without being either too obtrusive or too small.  It is programmable so you can set it up to power up/down other devices and gain some limited functional control over those other devices.  Overall, I am pleased with the operation of the remote and I use it regularly for my HTPC.

Logitech
Logitech has some great products as well, two of which are nice remote controls for HTPC user.  The Logitech Harmony One^TM and the Logitech Harmony 1100^TM are programmable remotes for all your devices.  Like the Microsoft solution above, the Logitech solutions listed leverage IR technology. Both Harmony remotes come with recharging stands to keep the batteries fresh.  The Harmony 1100 can go through a charge within a few days so having the charging station nearby is great for keeping it handy and keeping it charged.

The Harmony One is a great remote and very flexible.  One of the biggest features on the Harmony remotes is their programmability. If you are like many users, you may have multiple devices under your TV — perhaps a stereo amplifier, DVD player, HTPC and other devices.  The Harmony One offers the ability to connect to a PC and sync up with downloaded command codes for different devices along with customized icons.  While universal remotes are commonplace, the difference here is that you have the option to customize buttons.  The Harmony One has “hard buttons” and “soft buttons” and you can program each of these buttons to specific functions if you wish.  For example, you can change the function of the Menu hard button to act as the “Green Button” to launch Media Center.  Likewise, you could program the Exit hard button to act as a “MCE back button”.  Furthermore, you can program and label the soft buttons to various functions as well and then operate those soft buttons via a touch screen.  This really drives a level of flexibility not found on many other remotes. 

The Harmony 1100 is somewhat of the “uber” remote.  It too provides a level of flexibility and programmability found in other Harmony devices.  However, it has fewer hard buttons and does most of its magic through programmable soft buttons operated via a touch screen.  Like many Harmony remotes, it provides extensive 1 button action to turn on multiple devices and set up the devices for a specific operation.  For example, you can set up a remote soft button as a “play DVD” that will turn on your TV, select the appropriate input, turn on your DVD player and start playback of the DVD.  This makes for a very easy to operate remote.  Like the Harmony One, it also has the basic up/down/left/right navigation hard buttons for easy Media Center operation.  Included are volume up/down and channel up/down as well.  The Harmony remotes can also be used to access the various functions of your other devices as well.  For example, screen layout, PiP, Picture swap, etc. can all be programmed to soft buttons.  These are incredibly flexible remote solutions.

To me, the real strength of the Harmony remotes is when you have multiple boxes to control and you want full access to control all those other devices with an easy to use remote.  It may take you a few times through the Remote Set up process on your PC to get everything exactly as you want it, but once you do, it is a really nice solution.  It is important to note though that if your HTPC chassis does not have an IR sensor, you will need to pick up one (i.e. USB IR receiver) so the remote will work with your HTPC.   

User Experience
Like the keyboard blog I posted, it is difficult to write in depth about the full user experience and functionality of all these remotes in a single post so I will be brief.  Each one of these products could easily deserve its own post, therefore, I would suggest that you read some in depth reviews and go to the product pages to get a list of the full functionality offered by each of these products as well as to learn what other solutions are out there that might best meet your needs.

User experiences of these solutions differ from one unit to the next and also from one person to the next.  Everyone in my family quickly adapted to all the different remotes.  However, each also found their favorites.  I found the Gyration remote to provide enough functionality to power up/down other devices along with easy navigation both inside and outside Media Center.  While not as programmable as the Logitech products, the integrated mouse functionality was great. Others in the family really liked the one button ease of use of the Harmony products.  Their flexibility to be able to operate so many things and the touch screen functionality was pretty impressive.  For those on a tighter budget both the Microsoft Media Center remote and the nMedia combo solutions offer great value and functionality.  I don’t think there is any one, right solution as each of these solutions should work equally well.  It just depends on what your needs might be to determine which remote works best for you.  If you have some feedback about this blog or have some info you would like to share on your favorite HTPC keyboard solution, please feel free to leave a comment.

 Till next time, Happy Trails!

Jay Taylor is a Senior Developer Relations Engineer at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied