And yet… The configuration processes, whether by code look-up table, online software connection or IR “learning”, never work satisfactorily, unless I have been unlucky 50 times on the bounce, which is possible, if statistically improbable. Why not unite them into one remote? It really ought to work, I do see that. We sit hunched on our sofas while a lapping tide of remote controls surges towards us, threatening to flood every spare square inch of surface. Someone gave me a cheap market stall giant URC as a joke and that – oddly enough – is the only one I use, but it is configured only for the TV, which brings me to the principles underlying these wastes of plastic. Over the years I have bought more than 50, and not one was any use. I am talking about the so-called Universal Remote Control. No matter how gimcrack or futile the toy might be, the adrenaline will surge, the lips part and the breathing come in shallow stertorous pants of ecstasy.Īctually, there’s a rider to that – aside from apologising for using the phrase “pants of ecstasy”, I ought to make it clear that there is one genre of gadget that over the years has proved so preternaturally disappointing, so remorselessly useless, that I receive it with dread. Out tumbles the doodad and straight away I will plug it in, install its drivers, power it up and connect it, and to hell with the manual. I yield to few in my love of gadgets: let a new gizmo arrive in the post or be brought back from the shops and you will see me fall on it like a lion on an antelope – I will savage the hard, clear, welded plastic packaging with my teeth and let out growls of drooling hunger and mews of pleasure.

Stephen Fry on one of the most frustrating and useless gadgets devised by man, the so-called Universal Remote ControlĬolumn “Dork Talk” published on Saturday 27th September 2008 in The Guardian “URC: Universal Remote Control or Useless Rotten Crud” – The Guardian headline.

Urc remote editor download