Fenito universal remote mini review

Hi all,
Just thought i'd post a mini review of the Fenito FYT-TSR68 universal IR remote, as i couldn't see any forum info on it yet.

My old universal remote was very basic and could only handle 4 devices. I needed support for at least 6, so i started looking on ebay. I settled on this guy:

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The basic features include:
- 16 device support
- 7 x real buttons per device
- 2 x pages of 24 virtual buttons (LCD touch screen) for each device
- Both pre-programmed manufacturer codes and IR learning
- calendar and clock to support timed release of commands
- support for macros with up to 60 steps

My first impression was that it was quite huge! WIth my fingers supporting it underneath, my thumb can barely reach the far buttons. My wife definitely has to use 2 hands to access all the buttons. It is a solid build. The real buttons are rubberised and have good feedback. The LCD touchscreen probably feels tougher than my ipaq's screen, so i'm never worried about cracking it.
Programing:
I had trouble programming this beast . For a start, not one of my A/V devices was properly supported by the pre-packaged manufacturs codes. Equipment includes:
- sony receiver
- thompson digibox
- orion tv
- philips vcr
- I also have a sanyo projector and a HTPC with IR keyboard, but i always knew these would have to be custom done.
The best i could get out of the in-built codes was some of the channel and volume up/down buttons. Thats it.
So, instead i went the route of manually programming all buttons of my entire remote collection. Unfortunately, that was problematic also.
The (well written) manual says to aim the two remotes at each other and hold the source button down for AT LEAST 2 seconds for correct IR learning to take place. Every button i programmed this way resulted in a playback error. Through my own trial and testing, i realised that to program buttons successfully (at least on my equipment) you must only JUST tap the source button so it only sends out one repetition of the code. The Fenito does not like deciphering the boundry between multiple instances of the same IR command.
The next issue i had with programming was a biggie, but avoidable. Instead of the usual 2cm air gap i was leaving between the remotes in the learning phase, i jammed them right up together so the learning eye was touching the source remote IR LED. When i pressed the source button.......hey-presto, ala-kazam, the Fenito did a master reset! EVERYTHING i had previously programmed had been wiped! It was reset to default factory settings!! I can only assum that somehow, the receiving IR sensor is faulty and was capable of producing an output voltage above the required range for the rest of the electronics when it saw an overly strong input IR signal. It managed to trip the reset function (which does also legitimatly exist in the menu system) and lose all my codes.
The final problem i encountered was that i couldn't successfully add a new "device" where i wanted it. A device is a combination of an LCD button layout and their associated IR codes. 16 devices SHOULD be able to be linked to any combination of the 8 device selection buttons. The default devices include TV, DVD, CBL, VCR, Audio, AUX1, Aux2, Aux3, which fortunately were enough for me, but whenever i added a new device, it would appear under the TV button - i could not get it to link to any other, as the setup procedure has a bug that skips the device selection button step. Keep this in mind if you want to use more than 8 devices.

Usability:
After all that bad news, i'm happy to say that i did successfully program all my remotes and the thing is quite usable . For every device, there are 48 virtual buttons on the LCD screen. Any buttons you dont use, or dont want to program can be switched off in the setup options to reduce clutter on the screen. My thoughts are to use this remote for all the day-to-day functionality and leave off the specialist buttons that i would only ever use once in a blue moon. It's not that hard to dig out the VCRs real remote if i want to reprogram the clock for example.
The screen is not a dot matrix screen(like a PDA), but rather a fixed character LCD (like an old calculator), so there are only so many options you can have for the image over each button. All possible images are shown here:

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The blue backlight is great for dark home theatres but it ONLY lights the LCD screen and not the hard buttons or device selection buttons


Overall, i realise it sounds like a negative review, but all the problems i had a real gripe about were in the setup phase, not the general usability and i'm actually quite content with it now. The real test was when guests arrived and had to use it. It was quite intuative to them and they had no problems navigating the basics on a handful of devices.
For $50 delivered to my door, i recon i got what i paid for. It will do just fine in our loungeroom.

Note: i have not tested the timers or macro's, but will be sure to post back if i see any issues with them in the future.


cheers,
sean.

 

Nice Review,

I have been thinking of buying one similar to this!

 

It certainly looks funky, and the price seems right.

Where did you get it from, i need something to take away all my remotes.

 

"so i started looking on ebay. I settled on this guy"



If you meant which seller....sorry cant help. It's gone off my "won" list and i cant find a similar one currently for sale...sorry!