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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hit and Miss, April 13, 2009
This review is from: Gyration GYR4101CKUS Air Music Remote with Compact Keyboard (Electronics)
Well, I've had this product for about a week now. Enough time to pass judgement in my opinion. I certainly have had some issue, but like the heading says, they're hit and miss.
First, what I like. The Keyboard is comfortable, and comes with a cover which snaps to the top or bottom of the keyboard depending on whether or not you are using it or not. That's a good thing to help keep dust and potential spilled beverages off of it. I have no serious complaints about it. The remote on the other hand is a different story. What I like about the remote is that it does not require drivers to act as a mouse. This is a huge benefit because after failing to reinstall Windows XP, I tried Ubuntu (linux), and was happy to see the hardware run without drivers. Before I erased XP from the computer, I did get a chance to try the air music feature. It's neat. But it did crash on me once. To be fair, that's probably the result of XP just being glitchy. I'm going to give the Ar Music Software the benefit of the doubt here.
And now for the criticism. I really really really wanted to love this product, but the remote's functionality (or lack there of) is what bothers me. First off, the unit did NOT ship with an instruction manual, a problem I had read about in another online review before buying. But that reviewer reassured me that all the necessary programming information could be pulled from a PDF instruction manual from the Gyration website. Their site did not have the instructions for this exact product, and thus I tried the programming codes from their lesser model with horrid results. Basically I didn't have the right information. After the programming instructions didn't work I tried to use the remote's "learning" feature. Of all the things that could go wrong, I didn't expect this to fail. But it did. Not all the time, just most of the time. Imagine being able to teach the remote half the number keys from your TV remote, then having it refuse to learn more. I kid you not, this literally happened. Frustrated I contacted technical support and explained pretty much the whole story to this point. They never addressed the remote's learning issues, but they did send me the proper instructions in PDF. To some degree I felt like my problems were solved. But after the remote successfully accepted a code for my DVR, it didn't have a button for the commercial skip (probably the most important key on any DVR remote). So I tried to ammend the programming by teaching it the commercial skip. But all attempts were met with "learn key failed". Irritated, I tried again to teach the remote commands from my other remote's, but I was only greeted with "learn key failed". Now please keep in mind that while performing the learn key technique, the process will timeout if you take too long to perform the operation. That is how I know the remote was receiving the signal from my other remotes. Because the moment I pressed the button on my old remote, the Air Music Remote responded by displaying "learn key failed." By this point I am super frustrated! I e-mailed technical support again, this time explaining that I keep getting this "learn key failed" response. Well, my first email to Gyration was replied to in one day. But this second email was sent the Thursday before Good Fiday. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and waited till the following Monday (4-13-09) to expect a response. It never came. So here I am with a good wireless keyboard, and OK remote mouse which is a pathetic excuse for a "universal" remote. So take this review for what you will. I gave it a 3 because it does the bare minimum of what I expect the product to do. I would have liked to give it a 5, but unless someone from Gyration can fix the "learn key failed" problem, I just don't see it happening. And if the product was just defective, why wouldn't they have just emailed me return instructions and sent me a new one?
If Gyration gets back to me and helps get this thing working properly, I will gladly alter this review as necessary (assuming Amazon allows edits). Until that time, this is an accurate depiction of the problems I have encountered with this product in the past week.
Added note: This entire review was entered using the Air Music Remote and Keyboard (GYR4101CKUS)
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good mouse control, bad as a universal IR remote., July 23, 2009
This review is from: Gyration GYR4101CKUS Air Music Remote with Compact Keyboard (Electronics)
I got the exact same problem as another 3-star review here; some remotes are just impossible to teach to this thing. Like the remote for my Denon receiver. I'm able to teach it some of my Samsung tv buttons, like volume up (not down) and number keyes, but not channel up/down, menu and source select. My cable box remote is slightly better; all buttons work except exit and back. So if I press menu or channel info I'm stuck.
There is an option for entering codes for some AV brands. The only documentation I've found is for the Girder remote without the lcd display. If I look up under Denon, there are 20 or so four-digit codes listed. Two of these are accepted by the remote (but the signals didn't work on my Denon), the others generated an invalid code message. Same deal with Samsung. Each code takes 10-15 seconds to try out. After this ordeal I hit the booze and tried to find my happy place.
Today I tried this iTunes/MP link. It works, but don't rely on the display for making song selection. It's way too slow to navigate through. It's only useful to read what's playing and time remaining. One thing I've noticed a few times now is that holding in the arrow-down button only sends one signal. So to scroll down a page I have to repeatedly press arrow down. Popping a battery in and out resolves this. So does waiting for an hour. Weird..
I'm still keeping this piece of unfinished engineering. As mentioned, the mouse is good, the range is excellent, and there is a workaround: USB-UIRT, Intelliremote (Girder didn't recognize the HID device) and AutoHotkey (for using the non-HID buttons). I've just started this, and I estimate this job to be 5-6 long evenings of work.
Rant: why the hell is it so difficult to make something that works these days? I made my first HTPC in 2002, with serial-port remote, wireless signal to the TV, Zoomplayer, and everything worked like a charm. In the early 90s, my JVC VHS remote could copy anything I threw at it.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great product!, August 14, 2009
This review is from: Gyration GYR4101CKUS Air Music Remote with Compact Keyboard (Electronics)
I bought this product in the States during my vacation (I am from Europe) because you can't order the display version outside of the States. I installed it on my Windows 7 Mediacenter and have to say the remote is the best gadget I bought in years! Very easy to use, and finally a product that has it all.
Thanks to the RF technology and the display I can sit in the garden, and browse through my music collection. The only thing I missed on the remote is that I cannot program any macro's for doint multiple tasks with one button as my Harmony can, but I can live with that.
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