Like many, I was plagued with having too many remote controls in my living room. Some friends had suggested the Logitech Harmony line. I ended up getting a Harmony 300i. It currently lives in the bedroom as it has some shortfalls that I could not tolerate on the main TV. My main issue though was Logitech’s programming that must be done with their software that connects with your email address. Its not a huge deal, but it wasn’t all that friendly to me.

Research led me to “URC” as being fully programmable. I ended up with the URC-6 for under $20 from Amazon. I picked it based on price and the fact that it has a “-” button. I need the “-” for watching OTA TV with the digital tuner in my TV.

My real need for the universal remote was my Sony SA-VA15 audio system that I don’t have a remote for. More on this later.

I really should have listened more to the Amazon reviews, and read the manual in full before even putting the batteries in. That said, I found myself best off manually programming my TV and Blu Ray player remotes button by button. The codes for my devices did not have enough buttons set to be fully useful. It was painless and took less than 10 minutes each.

Now that Sony SA-VA15… I got it from my brother in law a few years ago from his storage unit. It was missing cables and the remote. I was able to cobble together cables, but had to adjust settings by getting off the couch. First world problems… I used the URC-A6’s manual “guess” method for this. Basically getting into program mode and scrolling up until I found one that turned the thing on/off and adjusted the volume. I haven’t found out how to switch inputs yet, but I’m happy.

I would highly recommend the URC-A6.