As our homes fill up with more and more audiovisual equipment we all begin to suffer remote control overload. The picture on the right is a classic example - I have 10 remote controls in my house. That's 10 devices all fighting for space on my coffee table, 10 devices all eating batteries as if they own shares in Duracell and 10 devices, all different to be learned well enough to operate with the lights dimmed.

Pictured on the right is my current remote control collection: TV, VCR, Sky Digital, AV Receiver, Ghetto Blaster, DVD, CD Player, Mini System, VCR2 and TV2. I've left the control for my car hi-fi in the car for the moment.

The remote control problem is not helped by the sheer uselessness of some of the controllers. For example, my DVD is a Pioneer DV-525, an excellent player, but the remote control is abysmal - all the buttons are the same size and it is impossible to operate without looking closely at what you're doing and even then it's not easy! The AV Receiver remote control has a fold out flap with many small buttons hidden underneath. More importantly, of the 50 or so buttons on each, how many do we actually use?

A solution is at hand - the "universal" remote control. These come in many shapes and sizes - the controller that comes with many AV Amplifiers can usually be programmed to control various other items - but is usually fairly inflexible as is the case with the one that came with my Sony STR930DB. Alternatively, a third-party model can be purchased - these range from several One-for-All models at the lower end of the market, which have sections for each component. This type of controller is often programmed by entering a code depending on the manufacturer of the component that you want to control, which can be troublesome with obscure equipment, but very handy if you've lost or broken the original controller. A much better idea is a controller that actually learns the commands being sent from an existing remote - virtually ensuring that you can program all of your components. An example of this is the Cambridge Multimedia Explorer - a LCD based remote control that allows custom screens to be setup for each component. It was a friend's purchase of one of these that got me interested in a universal remote control for myself.

I decided that in order to suit my needs, and actually be a useful purchase rather than a gadget to be discarded after the novelty had worn off, the remote control that I chose would have to be flexible. The ruled out anything with preset buttons and also the basic LCD type of controller. After some research on the internet, I decided to buy the Philips Pronto - a LCD learning remote control. This has several features that make it stand out from the crowd - most of which involve its ability to be connected to a PC via the supplied serial cable - as I'll go on to explain.

The unit is turned on by touching the screen. The back-light lights up the screen and the five buttons on the right. The timeout for the backlight screen and buttons can be set independently, but default to 4 seconds each. The screen can also be set to turn off and is factory set to 10 seconds. I've subsequently set the screen to 15 seconds, screen back-light to 10 seconds and button backlight to 6 seconds.

The supplied manual takes you through the basics and gets you started with the minimum of fuss.

Power is supplied via four AA batteries (supplied) or an optional charging cradle which the unit neatly sits on overnight and recharges. I'm using the supplied alkaline batteries at the moment and the internal power gauge shows about 2/3 left after 2 weeks hence I'll be moving to NiMH rechargeables when they run out.

Unfortunately, the software you need is not actually supplied in the box with the machine - rather it comes as a free download from the Philips website once you've registered your purchase. This allows Philips to ensure that you have the latest version of the software. Similarly, you also need to download the manual for the software.

Despite what the website says, I found the software unstable in Windows 2000 and have to reboot into Windows 98 where it runs without problems.

An easy way to figure out how the Pronto works is to imagine it's initial Home screen as a webpage. Each component you add is a separate page and can be linked to - similarly each component can have a number of sub pages. You can add links to any page at any time - the only limits are memory and creativity.

The first thing that I did was upload the current configuration of the Pronto into ProntoEdit and take a backup in case of disaster. I then deleted all the built in templates and set out to design my own input screens. Using the supplied button templates, I simply added a "TV" device, dragged the button layout that I wanted over and programmed my TV's remote control buttons onto them. This process was then repeated for each device - I worked on the principle of having a basic screen and an advanced screen for each, with the two bottom buttons flicking between screens. A word of advice here - don't spend much time doing this the first time - you'll soon find things you've forgotten or want to altered. I waited a week with my first attempt before returning to the drawing board.

A full set of remote control symbols is included to so your buttons can be labelled like the original to avoid any confusion. I've kept things simple and decided to have a link to my main devices at the top of each screen to ease navigation. You can even add your own pictures as backgrounds to the screens - I chose several digital photos from a recent trip to Edinburgh Zoo so have an assortment of big cats and penguins as backgrounds to brighten things up!

At the moment I've stuck with basic square buttons, but Photoshop gurus can design anything they want and there are loads of downloadable designs to choose from. You can use station logos for channel selection, design your own transport controls, menus, look - the possibilities are endless. Part of the software is ProntoEmulator, a software package that allows your designs to be tested before they are uploaded, take and screenshots etc.

But the "skinning" is only the icing on the cake with the Pronto. The real power comes from the ability to download control sets for just about every piece of hardware available. For example, on most TVs, the AV button simply cycles though the channels - but there are usually distinct codes for each input. You can "bind" multiple commands to single buttons with macros, allowing you for example to press a DVD button, which then turns on the DVD, AV Receiver and TV, selects the correct TV channel, selects the correct AV source, mutes the TV, adjusts the volume on the receiver and plays the film. Timers can be added into the equation as well, allowing any remote controlled item in range to be activated when you aren't there!

My Sony STR930DB AV Receiver has a two-way remote control that requires the user to scroll up/down menus to select soundfields, inputs etc, but after downloading the control sets, I have buttons to directly set soundfield and source with the press of a single button, or I can preset a soundfield to a source with a macro.

I've had my Pronto for two weeks now and it is without doubt the most useful item I've bought for years. My table is clear of junk, I can see to navigate the menu of my DVD with the lights down and it looks cool!

But there's more to come. Just how lazy are you? The Pronto can also be interfaced to a system known as X10 - home automation. For a reasonable cost you can automate lights, plugs, curtains in fact anything in your home. Imagine a remote control where one press of a button closes the curtains, dims the lights, turns on the AV system, sets all the inputs etc up and plays the movie. You could turn your kettle on from our living room - your imagination is the limit.

I've still to get the optimum layout of the screens devised - I now think a hybrid screen for movie watching with basic transport controls and volume etc should be added - it won't take long!

I deliberately left the costs to the end - I wanted to ensure that you read the review to see what the Pronto can do before you shout "how much!"

The Pronto itself cost £195 (inc VAT and shipping) with the optional recharging cradle for costing £40 (inc VAT and excl shipping). An X10 starter kit containing all you need to automate a light, a plug and a dimmer switch costs £88.13 (inc VAT and excl shipping).

I haven't assigned a score for value - to most people £195 on remote control represents more than they paid for their DVD player and is very poor value. To me, a gadget freak, it scores 10/10 easily!

Chris Cox

(Editors note: He may have not assigned a value, but we did, lets face it somebody had to)

	Build	Features	Value	Overall
	9	10	7	10