Forgive me if someone already makes something like this.. I'm about to put together a Sonos wireless speaker system in my house, and it got me to thinking about my current Harmony remote, and how great it could be I could initiate remote commands that took a path via wifi to whatever transmitter ultimately sent the signal to the AV gear. Then simple applications on my smartphone, or ipod touch, could replace having any kind of dedictated hand held remote at all (as is the case with sonos).

I almost can't believe this doesn't exists at the Logitech level of products yet..

Well, there are quite a few options for control via WiFi.

On the commercial remote side, the current Proto Pro's use WiFi to communicate with their base stations. You can write custom JavaScript so the Pronto can communicate with other devices via TCP/IP sockets. The Nevo S70 also has WiFi compatibility. The higher end URC remotes and panels include WiFi for accessing online and server stored content ( weather/stock feeds, cover art etc. )

On the DIY side, NetRemote and Girder from Proximis have been around for years. NetRemote can run on a WinCE PDA or smartphone, and talks to a Girder client on a PC that can then control devices by external devices like USBUIRT and others.

On the iPhone/Ipod touch side, there are at least a dozen applications, most 'almost ready', that can interface with a Global Cache or BitWise Ethernet gateway to control external devices. Look for threads here.

The app with the most attention here is the upcoming iRule .. here is the thread.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1124844

Also look for threads on Command Fusion, Melloware, and Bobby, which are actually released.

At first blush, WiFi seems to be the obvious choice for remote control communication because of it's ubiquiness. However, there are a couple of gotchas. The biggest one is that WiFi is a power sucker .. which means that a remote can usually only last a handful of hours before being recharged. To lessen power burden, these remotes ( and smartphone/pda/iPhone apps ) will disconnect from the network and turn off their radio when not used for a period of time. The problem here is when you want them to wake up, they have to re-connect to the network before they can send any commands. This takes time, especially in a secure network environment. So, you pick up your remote and press 'channel up', and it might take seconds for the command to be sent. Not what you expect from a remote control.

This is why most high-end two-way remotes use low power mesh networking like Zigbee or Zwave for communication. These networking schemes are designed for low power, low data rate ( you don't need 100Mb/s to send a 'channel up' command' ), low latency, and fast connects from sleep state.

The problem here is that most remotes, even those based on the same networking standard, are not interoperable. The holy grail is a mesh network standard specifically for remote control. Just such a thing is emerging and it's called RF4CE. RF4CE has the backing of a number of CE heavyweights including Panasonic, Phillips, Samsung, and Sony. On the chip level side they have the support of Freescale Semiconductor ( who's SynkroRF protocol RF4CE is based on ), Texas Instruments, and recently Microchip. Earlier this year the RF4CE consortium joined forces with the Zigbee Alliance ( both Zigbee and RF4CE use the same base 802.15.4 networking protocol). The major players in high end AV and home control, including Crestron, AMX, and Control4 already use Zigbee.

Another telling detail is that Logitech abandoned ZWave in their new Harmony 900 in favor of an 802.15.4 based protocol .. a proprietary one called ECNet from .. Freescale Semiconductor .. the same Freescale that created the foundation for the RF4CE protocol, and is a leading member of the Zigbee RF4CE project. Since the radio hardware is the same ( 802.15.4 ) for both ECNet, and the upcoming RF4CE, this may well be a sign of things to come.

The big 'ifs' are all the CE giants buying in, and making sure that all remotes and devices are truly interoperable, and promote that fact using a common brand to the public. This didn't happen (yet) with a similar HDMI control initiative called CEC .. in this scenario each CE manafacturer implemented proprietary commands, and branded CEC with their own trade name ( Samsung Anynet, Pioneer Aquos Link, Sony Bravia Link, Onkyo RHID, etc. ).

If RF4CE does succeed, it could pave the way for all CE devices to have a standard way to talk together via RF.

Here's hoping,

Jonathan