Palm as Remote (1 Viewer)

[Mark Shannon]

I've been thinking getting a cheap Palm Zire 2MB PDA to organize myself for school. It's a pretty good deal advertised in my Best Buy flyer. $149(CDN), and you get a $25 gift cert., and a $60 value Obus Forme Backpack. Works out to a total price (for the PDA) of about $65...

A friend of mine has the 8MB version, and apparently uses his as a remote control using a program he downloaded. Have any of you tried this? How good was it? Also, can you suggest some (preferably free) programs that can do this.

 

[Chuck Kent]

Mark: Personal opinion to follow...

As much as I love my Palm Zire 71, I would not consider using it as a remote control.

I have lots of reasons...chief among them being the fact that the infrared port beaming strength is not that good. Yes, PDAs can and do work. But they aren't anywhere near as good as a decent "true" remote. FWIW, some of the Pocket PCs can apparently do better than the Palms (I read from time to time about people using Dell Axims for remotes.)

Another biggie for me is that I do not like touchscreen remotes. Nothing like looking away from the TV and trying to figure out what's on the remote's screen and where I need to go to next to accomplish what I'm trying to do. The true touchscreen remotes out there, such as the Pronto, at least have hard buttons for volume and channel change. PDAs just aren't configured for ease of use like a real remote...

Still, if you want to pursue the idea, here is a link to the PDA forum at remote central. It's probably the best web link for your questions. http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin...c-pda/list.cgi

One last point that I have read is that the basic Palm Zire is more limited in it's abilities than the rest of the Palm line. Make sure if you explore the remote thing that the Zire will work ok with it and won't mess up your other apps...

Good Luck!

 

[Drew_W]

Visit:

http://www.pronto.philips.com/

There, you can download a trial version of their remote control software for Palm-based PDAs.