We got this new universal remote for our media room that is supposed to replace all the other remotes. There’s just one problem: I cannot figure out how it works. I know I’m not an electronics dude, but this is bad. It is a combination of touch-screen and buttons. But you can’t see the screen unless you push (and hold down) a little light button on the side. I know that none of the buttons on the front turn the TV on, or off, so it is somewhere within the touch-screen labyrinth. So I hold down the light button and the screen offers only one option “System input.” That doesn’t sound right but it is the only choice so I push that button. Nothing happens.
I experiment a little bit. I try pushing “System Input” while pushing any other button. When I get to the 14th one, the touch screen changes, if I had been holding down the light button too. Hooray! Now my choices are TV, DVR, VCR, CD, and DMV. I want to watch TV so I press the obvious choice. Nothing again. OK, maybe I’ll watch something on the DVR. Still nothing. Listen to some tunes? Renew my driver’s license? Nothing and nothing. Why did I even come to this screen if every button is a dead end? Wait a minute, I got here by pushing the screen AND button #14. Maybe that’s the secret. Nothing. I repeat the drill, holding down the screen TV button and one-by-one pushing all the little buttons. This time button 39 does the trick. It doesn’t turn on the TV, but it does change the touch screen. There are a bunch of little “touch” buttons now, including both “On” and “Off.” I’m getting warmer! I try the former and I am immediately returned to the first touch screen, with “System Input” seemingly snickering at me.
Seriously, is this a joke? Did the engineers get a good chuckle over the schematic? I gave up. TV isn’t ever that good. As I’m leaving the room, totally defeated, Natalie comes in. Maybe she knows. With nimble little fingers she somehow maneuvers through all the screens and buttons and within fifteen seconds “I Carly” pops on the screen. I ask her the secret but she won’t tell me; less media room competition. (I’m not kidding here; two of my children so far have refused to show me how it works.)
But I did watch her. It has something to do with simultaneously pushing buttons 4 and 17 and then tapping the upper right-hand section of the screen. I’m pretty sure it was Morse code for “Remote programming nerds rule.” After this she muttered some unintelligible incantation and I think I detected a little hop.
I hate universal remotes. I’m sure their functionality is amazing, it can probably start my dishwasher and my lawnmower which is great, but I just want it to turn on my TV. And once it is on I need only five functions: louder, softer, cannel up, channel down and off. Done. I don’t need to record three simultaneous home decorating shows. I don’t need a robot to make me a chocolate shake. I don’t want to automatically chlorinate my pool.
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