Universal remote controls

First time buying a remote control to replace a broken one…I went to Mr. DIY. The size of the selection surprised me. There are so many kinds...how do people choose? :O

It seemed that they were ALL universal remote controls, so any of them should work for me. (Especially since my TV is not a smart TV, which some of the remote controls may note work with.) After inspected a few of them, I gave up on analysing and decided to select the most aesthetically-pleasing one (to my eyes, at least :P ) And also, with button locations that were more familiar to me.

(And now I realize I did not take a photo of the remote control…too bad, it’s not right here now :P )

Anyway, I had always wondered how universal remote controls manage to be universal. But I had never looked at one properly before. Looking at the different packages, I realized that there were button sequences to first set up the remote control to work with your TV model.

And when I finally unpacked the one I bought, I realized there were even more methods…

But guess what? The last setup method on the box is the one that finally worked for me. I was first trying to find my remote control on the paper, but it wasn’t there (there are more models on the back of the sheet, by the way…). Then I tried the steps on the box, one by one. I was getting rather worried when nothing worked…when finally that last step managed to get the volume bar up on my TV.

Not sure whether I followed all the steps correctly! I still don’t know whether the “plus” symbol means simultaneous or sequential button presses. (I tried both, but neither worked :P )