From hard button to full-colour touch panels, we reveal what types of remote controls are available.

Having stacks of remote controls are neither ideal for functionality or aesthetics. Even having a simple home cinema system can easily produce four annoying remotes which can be lost in the sofa, left on the other side of the room, and even if all placed neatly side by side on the coffee table, take up far too much space and are a right eye-sore! There are three main solutions which deal with the riddle of the reproducing remote control.

Learning Remotes (£50 – £200)
Firstly, there are learning remotes. These remotes can control multiple devices in a home theatre by either, installing control codes for the specific devices or, by learning them from the original remote control. This is done by placing an original remote head-to-head with the learning remote, the signal is fired from the original remote and then learnt and assigned to a button on the learning remote. These remotes can easily be bought over the internet or from a good electronic high street store and are easy to programme with perhaps use of the instruction manual. Examples of these remotes are: • Logitech Harmony series • QED Systemline Arc 7 • Philips RC 9800i / Pronto Neo • Marantz RC3200

Remotes with Macro Functionality (£120 – £600)
The upgrade to entry-level remotes are ones with macro functionality. Quite simply this means that you can store a series of commands under one button, for example, the ‘Watch a movie’ button could combine “TV on”, “Change TV channel to AV 1”, “Amp on” “Amp to DVD input”, “DVD on”, “DVD play”. These remotes also usually have IR (Infra-red) RF (radio-frequent) and Wi-Fi connectivity for control of various equipment in multiple rooms. Macro enabled remotes can be programmed by savvy tech enthusiasts but otherwise are usually left for the custom installer to deal with. These types of remotes include: • SONY RM-AV2500T • Nevo SL • Philips Pronto RU series • Marantz RC 5400 / 9500

Complete Control systems (£25 000+)
The next step up from macro ready remotes, and the step is quite large in terms of functionality and cost, is complete control systems. These are usually used in Smart-Homes where there is a high level of integration of the home entertainment, security, lighting, climate and other automated devices such as shutters and blinds for example. The way that a user usually interfaces with all these systems is through a colour touchpanel or wall-mounted keypads. Unlike the previously talked about remotes however these interface devices are truly part of a larger system and programming is usually done by trained custom installers. The most well-known companies that offer these systems are: • Crestron • AMX