Use Your Treo as a Universal Remote Control

You probably never thought about using your Treo as a universal remote control for media equipment such as your TV, DVD player, cable box, and so forth. It turns out that the infrared port on your device is more than capable of beaming remote control commands to such devices. If you'd like to use your Treo to forgo the many remote controls that crowd the average "media room" these days, you'll want to check out NoviiRemote Deluxe by NoviiMedia.

Note

NoviiMedia also has a product called NoviiRemote Blaster that includes a high-powered infrared transmitter on an SD card with the NoviiRemote software built in. Unfortunately, as of this writing, NoviiRemote Blaster is not yet available for Treo devices. A version for the Treo is expected at some point and will help solve the problem of relatively weakly powered infrared ports on Treo devices.

NoviiRemote Deluxe ships with numerous "codebases" that you use to find matches for your equipment. For example, I have a Motorola digital cable box and a Sony WEGA television. The Sony TV was easy to match up with a standard codebase in NoviiRemote Deluxe, but I had to experiment a little to find a suitable codebase for the Motorola cable box. An advantage of the application is that it allows you to try different codebases and test them. I just sat in front of my cable box and tried hitting the Power button for different codebases until one of them powered on my cable box. Figure 14.7 shows the virtual remote control screen used to control a cable box via your Treo.

Figure 14.7. The NoviiRemote Deluxe application enables you to use your Treo as a universal remote control.

Depending on how popular each piece of your media equipment is, you might have to tinker with NoviiRemote Deluxe to find the right codebase for each piece. However, once you get them dialed in you'll find that controlling your entertainment center via your Treo is quite empowering. Just keep in mind that you'll be limited to a range of 10 to 15 feet, depending on the device you're attempting to control. To download NoviiRemote Deluxe, just visit its website at http://www.novii.tv/.