Customer Reviews

Philips SRU8015/37 Prestigo 15 Device Universal Remote

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I just received the brand new PRESTIGO 8015/37 remote on January 31, and it is an all around beautiful to look at remote. I have 4 devices programmed, and it performs all functions available on the originals. I had researched the Logitech Harmony remotes (680), and I do like their computer USB method of programming and updating over the Philips set up wizard. Some owners of Harmony have reported that the software is slow and lethargic.

As for the Prestigo 8015/37.....

Pros:

1. It is designer beautful, with all keys fully backlit, and a unique 2" colour LCD screen which accepts the network icons and functions. One touch TV selection
2. Programming is intuitive but imperfect using the setup wizard.
3. Once fully programmed, all keys on the 4 devices I have set up so far work well. This takes some patience and perseverence.
4. A nice shape, preferred over the curvy Harmony 680 and higher.

Cons:

1. Database is limited, with new devices requiring manual programming.
2. The . key for sub-channels for the 7432 required a manual key fix, wasting several hours in the initial set up procedures. Frustrating.
3. 3 of 4 devices (new) required manual programming. Even Philips items.
4. Documentation could be improved.

All in all, a very nice fully functional remote. A real cool factor, making it a gee whiz component. Prices range from $[...] (Amazon, [...]) to $[...] elsewhere. I have the Philips 7432 HDTV, Philips Blu Ray Player, Philips DVDR HDD, and the Toshiba HDDVD fully programmed. It accepts 15 devices, and has 400 built in colour icons. 1500 brand devices in database.

Now that I have been using the remote for over a week, I am very satisfied with my purchase. The coolness of the remote includes the piano black with silver finish which matches most of today's HDTVs, the really nice LCD screen with colored icons for all networks and most cable/satellite channels, and the fully backlit buttons. The manual programming is a bit tedious, but works well after you get the hang of it; you only have to do it once, and you can change functions on a key later on.

This new remote, which just came out in December, won an Innovations Award at the recent 2008 CES (Consumers Electronic Show) in Las Vegas.

I am glad that I went with the 8015/37 over the more popular Logitech Harmony.

Added August 30,2010:

I now recommend the Philips Prestigo SRT 9320 remote, which is 2 years newer, over this product. It has corrected any shortcomings in the software and hardware design that existed.

Coming from a Logitech Harmony 1000 (whose touchscreen eventually drove us nuts), I had high hopes that the SRU8015 would be a more straightforward but worthy replacement. In some ways it is, in others, it is not. Granted, it's considerably cheaper than the Harmony, but it's frustrating that it comes so very close to being excellent, and yet falls so far short.

Firstly, unlike the brochure and Philips' website indicates, the backlight on the unit I received doesn't turn itself on by picking it up. Actually, I've seen it turn the light on 3 or 4 times, but with no rhyme or reason. Very annoying.

Setting the remote up is pretty simple, but you are only allowed to choose from lists of manufacturers, not specific models. My Scientific Atlanta PVR cable box works with the remote, but the red/blue/yellow buttons were mapped incorrectly and had to be manually edited. And with most of my devices, there are several buttons not listed in the "More" category. If you have specific commands on your original remote that don't appear in the 8015's extended menus, you must add them manually. Had they allowed for specific model choices, the database would be bigger, so they obviously dumbed down the choices to save memory space.

If all you want to do is change channels and power things on/off, this remote will probably suffice, but if you regularly need to do things like change inputs, toggle aspect ratios, etc., you might find yourself spending considerable time holding your old remote up to the 8015 to learn IR codes, then naming them manually. Then be prepared to spend lots of time using the scroll wheel, as newly created commands are always put at the very bottom of the list, with no way to re-order them.

You can create activities (Watch TV, etc), and you can add delays to the signals for turning on multiple devices. Unfortunately though, you can't edit an activity once you create it. Didn't set the TV input delay long enough? You have to delete the entire Watch TV activity and create it again. Like manually added commands, you also can't manually re-order the activities...all newly created activities move to the bottom of the list by default.

Another annoyance is the dedicated check-mark button. This replaces "OK" for many commands that would normally be activated by an OK button. In fact, Philips' next model down the ladder, the SRU-9600 (partially touch screen based, and even more lacking in customization) doesn't have the check mark button. You instinctually want to hit the OK button when you make a choice, but if you try to use it, you are constantly shown a photo of the check mark button and told to use that instead. Why this remote needs a check mark button AND an OK button is beyond me. GRRR!

Finally there are problems with powering things on and off. I suppose this is inherent in simplistic universal remotes. You can turn your entire system off with one "All Off" activity, but you have to manually add each device and tell the 8015 what command (power off) to send. Seems to me that it shouldn't be too hard for the 8015 to know what the default power commands are. That aside, if you do set up a power off activity and one of your devices is already off, the 8015 will turn it back on. This is the difference between higher end remotes like the Harmony 1000. The 8015, even if it has been issued an activity command, doesn't know what devices are on or off. I've set up 3 separate power off activities...TV Off, DVD Off, and All Off. Kinda dumb.

On the bright side, the Favorites are nice, the remote feels solid, and the IR signal seems strong.

The most important thing I need to add to the reviews here is that this remote has no ability to program keys. It DOES control multiple devices well, but once you've designed a key sequence (an "activity" or a "macro"), there's no way to assign that sequence to an unused key.

Philips says you can "do anything" with a single key...but it's not really true, because before you hit that single key you have to scroll through all your devices and macros to find just the one you want.

Just to summarize...

PLUS
--Good looking, well constructed
--Nice heavy feel
--Nice color display
--Controls a bazillion devices
--No gigantic book of codes
--Doesn't forget programming when you change batteries
--Heavily discounted...for a reason...

MINUS
--No softkeys (you can't program keys to do sequences)
--Critical buttons are too small, poorly located
--Can't edit an existing macro/activity: you have to delete and re-enter
--The macro/activity programs you create are always at the bottom of a nice long list...even though the ones you just created ought to be the most useful and at the *top* of the list. You can't reorder the list at all.
--Poor manual, doesn't explain important remote functions

When I first got this, I was really impressed. After returning one, I discovered that the first my not have been defective but had more glitches then the replacement. The unit reboots often, forgets keys, and the backlight does not stay lit when you change settings. From what I can see, there is no way to update the firmware on this unit. The ring around the arrow keys gets in the way when you use the arrow key. This then changes the device from the one you think you are adjusting, to an other device you do not want to be on. Response time is slow on certain devices I put in. You can not create custom activities that are not already in the built in menu. I chose this because I did not want to program a remote over the internet like logitech. But there may be an advantage to doing this. I'll wait till this goes dead and give the logitech a chance.

Anyone fawning over this remote has either not used a lot of remotes, or they wrote this while in the "honeymoon stage". This remote is one of the worst on the market in terms of its user interface and inability to handle program edits. Make one mistake and you have to start over. Want to adjust that Activity macro? Sorry. Can't do it. How about the nifty (unadjustable) half-second backlight timeout when you hit a button. Sure, you can turn the scroll wheel and the backlight stays on fr the expected duration, but it's still a bug - and one that cannot be fixed with a firmware update since the remote has no ports.

If you're just turning on your TV and switching channels it's great. If you have an actual home theater system, users need to stay away.

There is a reason it is now selling (so soon after release) at about half its retail price while competing brands like Harmony are able to hold their value.

When I called the Phillips service line because the remote would not recognize the 2 remotes (other than the TV that it had programing for) nor learn from their remotes, I was told that it was working properly because it turned the TV on and off. But it was not intended to learn from every device. Not much of a universal remote. The customer rep kept repeating that it was working properly if it worked with the TV. Would certainly not recommend this product.

First off, this remote does have a few flaws, but this remote is not nearly as bad as some of these reviews sound. It is very tedious to setup correctly, but if you plan your programming out ahead of time it is simple. Maybe because I am a computer programmer this was easier for me, because it was like writing a small software program and I knew I had to be very careful about what order I coded the functions in. It is dumb of them that they didn't add a re-sort option, but oh well. Some of the reviews are just plain wrong, like the guy that said you cannot ADD custom activities except the ones it lists, actually to do this you just have to add the activity, then go back to it and rename it later. It just skips the step of asking you the name in certain cases (but there is a rename function). The way the LCD screen can list functions is superb! This is my favorite part of the remote. Some of my remotes are really complicated and there is just no way to use the buttons for them. For instance, my Pioneer stereo remote has so many buttons that I cannot even remember what they do, but with this remote you can go in and add really long descriptions in the function list and they show up on the LCD screen, then just use those instead of the buttons. I have been using the remote for 3 days straight now, and I have not had any bugs in functionality, and I am controlling 7 devices! One time I picked the remote up and it would not turn on, so I simply unplugged one battery to reset it. After this happened, it has been several days and it has not happened again. I think these kind of things mainly only happen after you do a bunch of programming to it. You should probably reset the device by taking the batteries out after you have added a whole bunch of functions (there may be a small memory leak in the software, but it doesn't affect it after your done programming)

I absolutely love the 500+ colored icons they included and the large screen. This remote has a larger screen than most. The icons are pretty high quality and they have one for pretty much every major cable channel.

To get the best results you really need to use the learning mode rather than rely on the database. Despite these minor issues, my biggest complaint about the remote is the stiffness and how heavy it is. The heaviness does not bother me as much as the stiffness of the channel and volume buttons. After changing channels for a few hours, sometimes my fingers get really tired. If the form factor and buttons were better, I would have given this remote 5 stars, even with the issues it has.

This remote can do more than most people realize, but some of the functions are somewhat hidden and not mentioned in the manuals (but if you try hard you will find them). For instance, you can use "Fix a Key" under the device menu to overwrite a programmed function. True that you cannot overwrite activities, but how hard is it to re-create one (takes a couple mins). I think people are just lazy sometimes.


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Flaws that do not have workarounds:
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This remote will likely take a few hours to get it programmed, depending on how many devices you have and how picky you are about it knowing every single feature of a remote. The volume and channel keys are way too stiff and some of the buttons are kind of small.

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Bugs:
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Back-Light does not come on when you pick it up (this doesn't bother me that much, but it would be nice to have this feature)
Back-Light does not always stay on as long as you have it set to (set it to 20 secs, sometimes light goes off in 5)
Had one time where it would not turn on, but after pulling the batteries out and replacing them, it did not happen again. This usually only happens when you are programming a bunch of stuff and you have never taken the batteries out in a while to soft reset the device (meaning it still retains its core memory).

Flaws that have workarounds:
Cannot re-order any items once added (always added to the end of the list)
--This can be worked around by simply planning your programming out ahead of time.
--What I did was thought real hard about what needs to be at the top, then added that first
--You could also write all the stuff you want on paper first, then re-order it, then program it.

A lot of the issues people have with this remote are out of pure laziness. The guy complaining about the volume issue, well it has a COPY volume function that only takes a second to copy to another device. If you want channel buttons to work on more than one device, just overwrite those channel buttons with the LEARNING function, or in some cases you can just assign it to another device (if editing an activity). So again, a lot of the features people say are missing are really there buried in the menu. (except for item re-ordering which is missing).

Now the JOG SHUTTER ISSUE...
As people have said, when using the UP/LEFT/DOWN/RIGHT arrow keys, you can accidentally hit the jog shutter which causes it to change the device you are controlling. The jog shutter actually makes it so much easier to scroll through long lists on the huge LCD screen it has. I have seen other devices which make you use a DOWN ARROW key to scroll through lists of favorites and functions, and this jog shutter is way easier (but the issue is that it's too loose and too easy, and you hit it on accident sometimes). Yes this can be a big problem, but there is a workaround.

Workaround # 1
First, 90% of the time (even for power users) we are using a remote for a few functions only, volume/channel changing, etc... So one workaround for accidentally hitting the jog shutter is to program those highly used keys over all the devices (how many devices do you really need to change volume on, you should only have 1 stereo hooked to your entertainment system). It has a copy volume command from your stereo, so it only takes a second. Same with the channel buttons, how many devices do you have that actually switch channels? So copy these main keys, and then if oyu accidentally switch devices --- it wont even matter, you'll still at least be able to control the channels and volume.

Workaround # 2
Go to the sub menu of the device, then accidentally hitting the jog shutter will have no effect on switching to the wrong device. If you select the device to view the favorites or functions of the device, then you accidentally hit the jog shutter, it wont matter. So as long as you are already FULLY in the device's child screen where it lists the functions verbally in the LCD menu, then you are great. The only inconvenience is that the next time you need to switch devices, you'' have to first hit the "HOME" key as to go back to the main menu.

Workaround #3
Personally my favorite workaround for the jog shutter issue is to simply get in the habit of looking at the LCD after you do use the arrow keys near the jog shutter (since the arrow keys are close to the jog shutter and this is the only thing that really makes us accidentally hit the jog shutter).


Again, by far my biggest issue is the stiffness of the channel and volume buttons, the other issues are fine as long as you have the patience to program this thing in the order you need from the beginning.

Hint:
You can create your own ROOT categories of favorites (Movies / Pay On Demand / Free on Demand). To do this, just keep adding another CABLE device, then rename it to the category you need, then add the icons as the favorites for that device. To do this you will need to re-learn each device, but for my CABLE box it already knew 90% of the keys, so I only had to LEARN 2 or 3 keys anyways.

The remote is just plain awesome...on paper. Don't get me wrong this remote is just good, not great because of a few things. First, lack of a manual: not a big con but I like to read the manual and not rely on an on screen guide that the remote provides. The rotary dial is just atrocious; whoever came up with that idea was smart but they should of included some type of lock or something from allowing the dial to rotate so easy. It is very easy to start operating one item, your thumbs slips and now you are pushing buttons frantically because said function is not working only for you to find out that the device function key changed. Now my biggest issue is the batteries. I use rechargeables in almost every electronic do dat in my house that needs it and have plenty to go around and yet this remote does not power on with them at all. I sort of feel ripped off just because of this issue alone

This unit is overly cumbersome to use, and could not get enough functionality out of it, given the skimpy and elliptical instructions, to be able to really replace the handful of device specific remotes. Specifically, was unable to figure out how to change inputs on the TV. Even when working, too much clunky scrolling and non-intuitive selecting to be worthwhile.
I've always been in the "gifted" classes and IQ test over 150, and now have another "universal" remote to throw into the drawer full other universal remotes I'm not smart enough to decipher.

This is the second universal remote that I've purchase and this Philips SRU8015/37 has been the best one that I have used.