 Philips TSU500 Pronto NEO Universal Learning Remote Control
Yeah, I know you're probably thinking -- a remote! He's
reviewing a remote?
I'm thinking that, too -- kinda.
But here's the thing: Everything has a remote these
days -- even my new ceiling fan and air conditioner. That means remote clutter. I have a
table near my favorite chair that is just covered with the little suckers. They fall off,
sometimes spewing their battery guts all over the place. And they hide. I've never
actually seen 'em move off the table to their favorite lair between the sofa cushions, but
I know they migrate somehow.
You can cut the clutter down to some extent by buying a
single-brand system. That way your A/V receiver, DVD player, and TV (maybe) will all work
off the same remote. But what about your cable box? What about your ceiling fan? What
about the motorized draperies across the proscenium -- sorry, got a little lost in my
fantasy home theater there.
But you get the point. Even really good system remotes
can't keep up with the heartbreak of remote proliferation -- although you have to
give the manufacturers credit for trying.
For a while, I thought this might represent an opportunity
for the product that would make my fortune. Since it's primarily men who worship at the
shrine of the remote, I thought I'd manufacture a remote bandolier -- a massive web strap
with pockets for up to ten controls. What could be more manly than that? Every couch
potato could have his very own utility belt.
Holy total control, Batman!
As attractive as I find thoughts of financial independence,
I must admit there is a simpler answer already available: the learning remote. And you can
buy those just about anywhere these days. But even learning remotes have their
limitations -- especially when your system grows really complex. And some of them have so
many dag-nab little buttons on 'em that you have to turn the light on to use 'em --
assuming you can find that button.
That's why so many companies are bringing out really
comprehensive, programmable, universal/learning remotes built around touchscreen
technology and a graphic user interface (GUI) that presents all those controls on
"pages," allowing the remotes to control multiple devices without gazillions
of buttons.
Of course, there's a downside to packing all that command
power into a single unit: with great power comes great complexity, to sort of quote
Spider-Man. I'm probably revealing how completely geeky I am when I confess to having used
several -- chances are you already knew that -- and some of them are a lot easier to use
and program than others.
The Philips TSU500 Pronto NEO falls into the middle of the
super-duper remote category in terms of price ($199.95-USD MSRP) and profile (it fits into
your hand -- barely), but it lives up to the super-duper designation. It can do just about
anything you're too lazy to do -- assuming you're energetic enough to teach it what it
needs to know.
O! this learning, what a thing it is
The TSU500 Pronto NEO (NEO from here on) is small enough at
7.8"H by 3"W by 1.3"D to be considered a handheld unit rather than a
console model, but it is definitely a handful. Its user-interface surface (what would
you call it -- the front? The top?) is dominated by a rectangular backlit touch-screen
LCD, a cluster of "hard buttons," and a ring-wheel cursor control that lets you
navigate through the various GUI screens. Directly under the screen are four buttons: in
the center are a pair that control functions specific to each GUI page; flanking them are
the mode switch button and the one that takes you from a specific page to the device
overview. Directly below those controls are a large oval volume up/down toggle button, the
cursor wheel (with an "OK" control in its center), and a channel up/down toggle.
Below that cluster are a mute switch and a function key. Along the left side of the unit
(where your fingers would rest when curled if you held the unit in your right palm) are a
serial port, the button that activates the backlight function, and page up and down
buttons.
That LCD is a monochrome jobbie offering four scales of
gray (I think that's supposed to be a good thing) with a resolution of 160x100 pixels. You
can adjust contrast digitally, which my 50-year-old eyes found a huge relief (also that
backlighting). The NEO has a megabyte of non-volatile flash memory and already has an
immense database of IR control codes installed -- connect it to your PC with the included
serial cable and you can download updated firmware with even newer codes.
It also comes programmed with 11 device categories, but you
can create and label new ones (buttons, labels, or menus) with the NEOedit software that
comes with the unit. Even better, you can create macros that will sequence commands,
saving you all those tiring individual keystrokes.
Oh, and did I mention that it has a clock and calendar
function?
No end to learning
Your first week with the NEO may well have you wondering
why you spent all that money on a remote that makes you do so much work. Well,
maybe the really expensive touchscreen remotes are easier to set up, but I suspect
that what makes them seem so simple is that the people who spend $500 on a remote can also
hire people to program them. The NEO, like the other super-duper controls I have used,
requires a little up-front geekiness before you can bliss-out and do everything with a
single button push.
The first thing you should do is upload the latest version
of the NEOedit software. You'll do it eventually anyway, and the latest version may save
you a lot of work. Then see if all of your components are covered in the
"universal" command list. I had a few that weren't, so I had to create a few new
pages, label a few new buttons, and teach the machine the commands I needed. This is
tedious, but not hard -- and the chances are that if you need a $200 remote, you're
already doing a certain amount of sitting around anyway.
Perhaps I exaggerate the amount of work involved in setting
up the NEO. If you're comfortable with computers and quickly grasp concepts like
"pages" (a control assortment for a device that inhabits the whole touchscreen),
"buttons" (the individual controls needed for each device), and macros
(sequential commands, grouped together -- such as "play DVD," which would turn
off the room lights, switch the preamp processor to DVD, power up the monitor, and start
the DVD in the player), it might take less than an hour to program everything into your
new NEO.
However, if you're like me, you'll probably spend about an
hour setting up the basic structure of your command options and teaching the NEO any
commands it doesn't already have and then, as you use it over the next week or so,
continue to think of new ways you can make it fit your needs. As you add commands -- or
more likely, delete buttons and pages -- your NEO will begin to fit your needs.
And that's when an expensive, powerful remote begins to make sense -- when it trims away
all the little frustrations that have always been inherent in controlling your system, but
you'd stopped noticing because that's just how these things work. It don't got to be that
way.
Which is why you really should create a few
multi-command macros (not simply because you can). The whole point of the NEO is to
get rid of clutter -- both on that chairside table and in your use of your system. Macros
are no more difficult to program than setting up single commands, except you need to
remember to program pauses between commands so that you don't confuse your components. (I
have no idea why you need to do this, except that macros don't seem to work if you don't
-- so just do it, okay?)
Other than that, there's not much to operating the NEO --
you push a button, the device works. Bob's your uncle.
What? I need to say more?
Well, the more you use the backlight function, the faster
you'll use up batteries, but don't use the backlight and you'll issue a lot of commands
you didn't want too. I just grumble and buy a lot of batteries.
What -- more?
Well, I really liked the ability to just dump entire pages
I seldom used. As a result, my NEO didn't always pull up functions I use only
occasionally, but I don't have to sort through 47 GUI pages just to control play,
fast-forward, and reverse. I still have the individual remotes (in a drawer somewhere, I
guess) if I do want to reprogram my DVD player's "show command" duration.
Yeah, like that'll ever happen.
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and
learning the instrument as one goes on
Simply put, the NEO does what it's supposed to, after a
brief period of learning what you need it to do -- heck, a lot of that learning curve is you
figuring out what you want it to do. But once you've got it set up, you just forget what
life was like with a table overflowing with individual remotes.
That's a luxury.
And so is the Philips TSU500 Pronto NEO universal learning
remote control. Maybe you don't need one. If you're happy with a table full of little
gizmos and you don't feel particularly put upon by the demands of juggling two, three, or
more of them every time you want to play a DVD, you don't need a NEO. But if you do
chafe every time you can't find the right remote or your system makes you adapt to it,
instead of vice versa, it's one of those luxuries that'll make you wonder how you
ever got along without it.
So yeah, I reviewed a remote -- and I liked it.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
Philips TSU500 Pronto NEO
Universal Learning Remote Control
Price: $199.95 USD.
Warranty: 90 days parts and labor.
Philips Consumer Electronics North America Corporation
P.O. Box 467300
Atlanta, Georgia 31146-7300 USA
Phone: (770) 821-2400
Website: www.consumer.philips.com
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