Anderic Universal for Panasonic TVs (Pre-Programmed) 4-Device Universal with Backlight and Learning - Universal Remote Control (RR0777S)

The 'punch-through' feature of this universal remote makes it simply the best choice available. 'Punch-through' lets you dedicate a key to a single device - this is an amazingly useful feature not found on other universal remotes. Even though this Anderic said it was for a Panasonic TV, it was trivial to unlock the remote so it would instead control my LG TV. I have 4 devices in my case: an LG TV, a Samsung DVD Player, a Roku 4, and a Yamaha stereo. I use the surround sound off the Yamaha stereo for all listening, except when I am using headphones. This Anderic remote is the first remote that actually allowed me to have ALL the functionality I want with only one remote. I've owned three different Harmony remotes and they've never quite worked to allow me to get down to one remote. The 'punch-through' of the Anderic was just the feature I needed to get everything to work, including some of the subtle details that were never quite right with the Harmony remotes. Each of my Harmony remotes have died within a year (volume key wore out on 2 of the 3, one drained batteries in just a few days) so I'm done with Harmony remotes. Programming this device took some time and I had to read the entire manual (3-4 pages long). Programming is done using the Anderic remote and you may also need your old remote if you need to 'learn' any of the keys on the Anderic. In the end, I probably spent 4-5 hours playing with the remote and trying various things before I was happy with all the remote's key settings. The beauty of this Anderic is you can pretty much get any key to perform any function for any of your 4 supported devices, whereas the Harmony remotes have limitations about keys that won't allow you to force a key to a particular device (at least the three Harmony remotes that I owned just never could get me successfully down to one remote). The Harmony remotes have wonderful programming software that runs from a web app - and make it pretty darn easy to program a Harmony remote. This Anderic does not have a web-based interface like the Harmony, however I really did not miss the slick Harmony programming interface. I thought it was more important to get the functionality I wanted instead of a slick web-based interface that ties your hands. My final configuration of this remote has - A set of dedicated keys that completely replicate the Roku keys - The volume key is dedicated ('punched through') to the volume of my Yamaha stereo - A couple keys I dedicated to get the over-the-air channel 'info' from my LG TV (and show me the upcoming OTA programs) - A few keys dedicated for the LG TV closed captioning and sleep timer. It took a couple days of using this remote to decide how I wanted various keys to map to various functions of my devices. I did end up needing to manually 'learn' a few keys using the old remotes. If you have one of the Roku's with an RF remote (rather than a typical optical remote) and want to learn any of the Roku keys (I 'learned' the Roku back arrow button onto a couple different keys of the Anderic, just for ease of use), you will need to find an optical Roku remote to do the learning on the Anderic. Be prepared to spend a little time learning how to program this remote. It is definitely a little bit daunting at first and you will need likely need to thoroughly read the manual. When selecting a TV model, you have 3 methods to select your TV model (much clunkier than Harmony way of doing this): 1) Code Input Method. Enter one of possibly dozens of codes that may work for your TV. This was my first attempt but my LG TV had a huge list and I just gave up. 2) Auto Code Search Method. Use the CH- and CH+ keys to search for your TV. But it searches through the massive list of TVs - ugh. Not viable that I could tell. 3) One Button Search. This worked great for my LG TV (once I disabled the 'device mode lock' that this Panasonic model shipped with). I just entered a '1' after entering this mode and it found my TV style, then powered off. First one it found was not quite what I wanted, so I tried a second time and that was the ticket. So bottom line is that this is a great remote if your willing to potentially lumber your way through programming. But it sure is worth the time to finally have a universal remote that works for all my devices.

Update 2: Unfortunately, I must lower the rating back down. Another of these remotes has failed and since there are other reviews reporting the same exact problem I had with this one (starts forgetting 4 digit device codes AND learned IR commands) I simply cannot ignore this is a deeply flawed product with ongoing problems which aren't getting resolved. To make matters worse, support has seriously declined as well. Upon contacting them this time, I was given incorrect information twice about how to factory reset the remote and eventually had to track down the printed manual and find the proper sequence for myself. That still didn't fix the problem and support was of no further help. In fact, they actually told me to go to their own website and order another one. Ummm, no! Why would I buy another doomed-to-fail remote AND do so from your website instead of Amazon? Why would anyone??? What an absurd, out-of-touch with reality suggestion. Update 1: Seller contacted me and offered to send a replacement. Since I was roughly six months beyond the one year warranty, I am raising my rating in recognition of them going to extra mile with customer service. Original review: A lot of people write reviews shortly after purchasing. And at that point products are often still working well. Wish I had used the filter Amazon provides to read through all the 1 and 2 star reviews first. You will find quite a few on there from buyers who had their remotes fail a little over a year after purchase. Unfortunately, I am another one on the list. It seems obvious to me now this is one of those products that has a 1 year warranty specifically because they know a lot of them will start having problems not long afterwards and they want to avoid warranty claims. In addition to the lack of reliability/longevity, I can also confirm what many others said about the backlight being so dim, even with new batteries. It's genuinely only half as bright as other backlit remotes I've owned. So, if you're thinking of rolling the dice on the lifespan on this remote just because you want a cheap remote with backlighting... don't, it's not bright enough to be useful.

Excellent. Remote worked perfectly right out of the package

These are exceptional remote controls, with incredible flexibility. I just received my second one and had to contact customer service via chat. They were very helpful on finding a solution, and I strongly recommend this product and the company (btw, I purchased the Panasonic version, with the intent of reprogramming to my LG TV. At first, couldn't do it, but customer service advised using unlock mode procedure, and it worked perfectly with the new tv code)

Does not work on my Samsung tv which is only 2 or 3 years old.

I was looking for a backlit remote control compatible with the cable box. After countless hours searching the Internet, I chose the Anderic remote. Unfortunately, I could not sync the remote to the cable box (I attempted the three options described in the user manual). Due to the inability to sync the remote, I DO NOT recommend the product.

Remote is similar to the Inteset Remote. I bought this as a replacement since two of the inteset remotes failed. Please note that the instructions that come with the remote lack the disclaimer that the TV function is locked (this is preprogrammed for a Panasonic TV). I recommend going online and downloading their PDF instructions. It will instruct you on how to remove the TV function lock so that you can program the remote to use another brand TV. So far all devices work properly (Sharp TV, Apple TV, Sony DVD, and Comcast Set-top receiver (the small box for tv only function)). One note is that Sharp and Highsense are the same company so if you can’t find a Sharp code that works, try the Highsense codes. Back light works well and is stable, doesn’t flicker. I found this product but doing an Amazon search for a Universal Remote to replace one that became defective.

I've found this remote to be just as useful and easier to program than the Harmony remote it is replacing. However, I didn't appreciate the price baiting on the item. A few days after I received it, I decided to order two more and discovered that the price had doubled. Classy! The original order wasn't on sale; it was at regular price. It would have received five stars if it wasn't for the shady price manipulation.