[DiabloD3]

I agree with the Harmony suggestion. I bought one to replace all my remotes purely because I don't need 900 different settings that all do the same thing.

For example, I have a TV, a Bluray player, and an AV receiver. I choose the "watch a movie" task, it turns all three on, sets the TV input to the input the AV receiver is plugged into, the AV receiver to the input the Bluray player is plugged into, and then maps the play/stop/ff/rev/etc buttons to the Bluray player and the volume buttons to the AV receiver.

Every button is configurable, all the on screen menu options on the remote are configurable.

[tormeh]

That the buttons are configurable is a bug, not a feature. It doesn't come with your TV, you have to know that you should buy it and you have to set it up. It works for you, but does it work for your SO/parents or whatever? Or did you have to teach them how to use it? If yes then it doesn't really work.

An example of something similar: Ubuntu can become as simple as a stone. It would still be too complicated because it doesn't come pre-installed on officially supported PCs. Not third-party-brand-no-ones-heard-about with tentative OS support. I'm talking about an official Ubuntu PC where everything is made to fit with each other. Me and you are OK with patchworks of software and hardware, bugs and weird command line wizardy. Normal people want appliances. Windows PCs are something people treat as horrible appliances, which they've sort of learned to tolerate and work with over a decade or more of training. It's like a fridge with a control panel. Normal people need iOS. Options and customizability are bugs, not features to most people. Sometimes some (but not most) people want more than just an appliance, but they still want the minimal complexity possible given their requirements. Buying extra remotes or installing another OS is really not what they want.

Downvoters: I dragged desktop Linux into this because I'm excited about Linux and because it's hopeless as a consumer product.