(Standing) Hello, my name is Dave and I'm a techno-weenie. I guess, in true addict fashion, that I don't really have a problem with being a techno-weenie; it's my loved ones who most often feel the pain. This is no more apparent than when I change my home entertainment configuration and my wife can no longer turn on the TV or listen to a CD. Or when we have house guests and they wake us up at 6am because they pressed the wrong button on the wrong remote and turn on the lights in our bedroom (along with every other light in the house...).

THE SOLUTION, NOT THE PROBLEM
In true techno-weenie style, I'm constantly on the look-out for yet more technology to help others deal with my addiction. The uCommand-515 remote from Crisp Solutions almost does that. I say "almost" because it has one serious flaw that makes it difficult to use for non-techno-weenies and house guests. But despite this one flaw, it still solves a lot more problems than it causes, so let's look at its good points first.

CHEAP TRICK
In addition to being a techno-weenie, I'm also a cheapskate; I like getting a good value for my money. There are a lot of advanced remotes on the market that can learn commands from your existing remotes, create macros, and have a customizable interface. Many of them also solve the one flaw from which the UC-515 suffers. But I refuse to pay more for a home entertainment remote control than I paid for my Palm V! At $120 or less, the UC-515 wins hands down in the value department. I think it's the best designed and most feature-rich remote in its price category.

AN EIGHT RING CIRCUS
The UC-515 can control up to eight different components, and it "learns" the commands for those components from the existing remotes rather than having lots of devices already programmed in at the factory (a tactic that I have found to be really hit-and-miss when it comes to having complete control over my components).

The learning process is very straight-forward, although it's not quite intuitive enough to do without reading the instructions the first time through. The UC-515 has two IR points: an emitter and a receiver. The IR receiver is located at the bottom end of the remote (the end that's pointed toward you when you're using the remote), so the process of learning a command is simply to put the UC-515 in "learn mode" and then point the original remote's emitter at the UC-515's receiver and press the button on the original remote that you want the UC-515 to learn. The UC-515 will give you either the OK icon if it succeeded in learning the command, or the Error icon if it failed. Failures usually occur when the original remote is placed either too close or too far away from the UC-515, so it's usually just a matter of adjusting the placement of the original remote to solve the problem.

X-10'S THE LIMIT
In using the UC-515 for nearly a year now, the only components I was not able to "teach" the UC-515 were the IR commands for the X-10 home control system. Recently, however, I learned that Crisp Solutions is loading the X-10 commands into the UC-515 at the factory, and they are updating the remotes of customers which are still within the year warranty period. I sent my remote in for an update and received a new remote within a week. The folks I corresponded with at Crisp (via e-mail), were prompt, polite, and helpful. The new remote, which I've been using for about a week now, controls my X-10 system flawlessly. The only problem is that the UC-515 will not control X-10 devices numbered greater than 10 (X-10 numbers go to 16).

A GUI BY ANY OTHER NAME
Once you have the UC-515 set up to control your components, you can modify the interface (button-layout) on each of the remote's eight component screens (actually, I find that it's best to set up the interface first, and then to go through the learning process). Each of the eight screens has the same button layout, but you can individualize them by hiding/showing and changing button labels. And this is where I find the UC-515's biggest flaw: each button label is limited to the 4-5 words/icons pre-programmed into the UC-515; you can't customize the button labels. For instance, on the factory installed X-10 screen, the on/off buttons are labeled "Channel" and have the up/down arrow icons. Likewise, the brighten/dim buttons are labeled "Volume" and also have the up/down arrows. The All Off command is assigned to the "Mute" button, and the All On command is assigned to the "Power" button. I can change the icons/labels of those buttons (except for Power), to other choices that are stored in the device, but none of the other choices make any more sense than the ones assigned at the factory. I, and everyone else who uses the remote, must simply remember that the volume and channel buttons on the screen assigned to X-10, function differently than the same buttons on the TV, VCR, and AMP screens.

MACROS MAKE THE WORLD GO ROUND
IMHO, no remote control is complete without macros. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about: macros are a series of commands assigned to a single button. For example, a remote with macro capability lets you create a macro to turn on the TV, tune to channel 2, turn on the stereo, set it to TV/Aux mode, and dim the lights. You can then assign this macro to one button so you can do everything with single press.

The UC-515 really shines in this area. Any of the buttons on any of the screens can contain a macro consisting of up to 25 commands. I have run into the 25 command limit only a couple of times so far: once when creating a macro that sets the "black level" in my TV preferences, and again when I created an X-10 macro to dim a light. Both macros required repeated clicks of a single button that filled up the 25 command space.

Assembling macros is very straight forward. When you place the UC-515 in macro assembly mode, you press the button that will contain the macro, the remote displays the OK icon, and then you navigate to the screen or screens that contain the buttons you'll press to store the command in the macro. The only features that could make the macro capability of the UC-515 even better are:

1) Being able to store the component buttons as part of the macro so that at the end of a macro, the remote would switch to the appropriate component screen. For instance, after creating the macro described above to turn on the TV, it would be nice to have the remote switch to the TV screen so you would then be ready to channel surf.

2) Being able to "chain" macros; or in other words, being able to have one macro call other macros.

3) And finally, being able to connect the UC-515 to a Mac so that one could assemble/save macros on the computer. This would have made life a lot simpler recently after I received my X-10 upgraded remote and had to rebuild every macro from scratch again.

ERGONOMICS? I DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' ERGONOMICS!
One other criticism of the UC-515 that I've read in other reviews has to do with the remote's "ergonomics." Some reviewers feel that the UC-515's lack of physical buttons (all buttons are graphical representations on the backlit LCD screen), make the remote difficult to use for common, often used functions such as channel, volume, and mute.

When I first started using the remote, these criticisms seemed well-founded every time I went to turn up the volume in a good part of a show and accidentally changed the channel. But these incidences decreased over time as I used the UC-515 and became more familiar with the screen layout. So I no longer place a lot of emphasis on having a remote with both physical keys and an LCD touch screen, but it's something you may want to consider in your remote purchase. I know that Crisp Solutions has a new remote that has physical buttons in addition to the touch-screen, but its macro capabilities are not as robust as the UC-515. There's always a trade-off...such is the life of a techno-weenie!


Recommended: Yes