The boys’ clicker

I waxed romantic about my “clicker” once before. I like hard buttons (as opposed to touchscreens).  I also like good one-handed balance and ease of blind use, and my MX-700 is tip-top all the way around.  I’ve been remarkably faithful to it.

I had to unstick the 9 key last year.  I never identified the foreign substance.  (Recall that two little boys live at my house.)  It’s not at all clear to me how the thing comes apart, so it was isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab from the top and hope for the best.  It worked.

But it got me thinking about the idea of a children’s remote.  I’m resigned to a certain amount of child-related property damage, but my meticulously-researched and still pleasing remote must be spared.

I bought a $9 Sony with big buttons that I thought they’d like, and they used it for a while.  But it lacked a four-way pad, so Nathan complained that he couldn’t scroll through the on-screen guide to see what was coming on next.  (Hey kid, let me tell you about walking to the black and white TV to change channels, and wading through the newspaper TV listings, and…)

The Sony recently died a horrible Silly Putty-related death.  I pointed out to Nathan how terribly convenient it was that he didn’t like it so well and here it is ruined, but he swore it was an accident.  I think I believe him.

The boys’ Universal URC-WR7 arrived today, and I’ll tell you, this thing is pretty trick.  It’s fully backlit, with seven banks of commands.  It feels robust.  The button layout is intuitive.  It uses a built-in code library, but also has learning capability.  It has macros and basic key mapping.  Thanks to solid design and excellent documentation, it only took me about ten minutes from opening the box to setting it up completely.

And it was only $21! This is a fairly serious piece of equipment for so little.  If you’re shopping for a universal remote, it’d be easy for you to spend more and do worse than this unit.

We’ve gone over the importance of clean hands and gentle handling, and we’ve also gone over the fact that if this one dies of abuse, it’s going to be piggy bank time or do without.  We’ll see.

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