Lets Talk MX-980 - Page 2

What is the battery life of the MX-980 supposed to be like?

I picked one up yesterday, and on a full charge it seems to get about 15 minutes of use. Clearly this is defective. But after looking around it seems that the battery life isn't great on a good unit. So basically I'm trying to decide whether to exchange it for another MX-980, or just get something different.

^^ i had the same 15 minute battery life with the 980 i originally purchased. i called URC and they told me to ship everything back to them including the original box (if you have it) and they shipped me new everything.

i found this thread due to the battery life question. mine needs a re-charge every couple of days. i just wanted to make sure this was normal, apparently it is . jeez, the batteries in my 850 last about 3 months. is it the backlight consuming the batteries? is there a way to turn off the backlight and dedicate a button on the remote to turn "ON" the backlight?

1 last vent, why didn't URC use AAA on this model? i use re-chargables on the 850 and always had spares around so down time was less than 1 minute.

vent mode off for now....

Why aren't you guys just keeping the remote on the charging cradle when not in use...?

that's what i'll have to start doing, it's just my previous MX850 had me spoiled with it's battery life.

That's a prety stupid requirement. That comment isn't to you, it's to whoever at URC though that remotes can "live" in a cradle.

I don't really want to have the charging cradle right next to my primary sittng positions. And I don't want to have to remember to walk over to the cradle to "hang up" the remote when I'm stumbling off to bed at night.

What does the "Sleep Timer" do?

For the most part I've got the rest of the editor figured out. I've spent several hours configuring for my setup, and have it working using the Harmony metaphor of separating Activities from Devices, so that once an activity is started the remote knows what devices should be on/off, and it's simple to then have a "Fix Setup" button that can reconfigure, kinda like "Help" on the Harmony's. I was worried about pulling this off until I discoverred in the Preferences that you can allow the special hard buttons (Listen, Watch, On, Off) to be assigned to.

But anyhow, what does "Sleep Timer" do? Seems like something potentially useful.

jay

It sets a sleep timer. lol

Seriously, it brings up a special (non-configurable) window where you can select a time to shut down the system (or do whatever you want).....then after that lapse of time it fires your macro of choice. Kinda neat, but I ended up deleting it from my file because I didn't use it very much. Playing around with it is the best way to figure out how it works.

BTW, I'm interested in your "Help" screens. Mind sharing your config file?

That's the price you pay for a graphics remote like the 980.

BTW, I know the "stumbling off to bed" situation. That's why I don't worry about it and always throw it on the charging base the next morning or whenever I get a chance.

Hah! Indeed it is a sleep timer :-)

The user interface in the editor for the sleep timer is particularly bad--I never noticed that when I clicked the button it stayed selected. They should have instead made a command appear along with the rest of the steps in the macro.

And you are right, a simple experiment cleared that up.

I'll look to post the file soon. I may have implied too much witht he "Help", though. I've got discrete codes for all devices, so I don't need to emulate a Harmony's "Is the TV on?", "Is the AVR on?" ... q&a. Thus it's easy to re-fire the On/Off codes for each device depending on what the current activity wants. So there's one button for refiring all the power commands, and another button to re-enter the current activity which will re-send all the commands to configure the inputs.

I sure wish that the .RCF files were text-based, though, as much of what I have done is replicate the same things repeatedly for each device. If the RCF files were text based then I could have more easily written a perl script to create the RCF for me :-)

So I solved the battery problems. I took the remote that was sucking batteries in 15 minutes back to the dealer, and he happily swapped it out. I thought that would be the end of it. Nope.

When I got home with the new remote I plugged in the battery and stuck it in the cradle. It immediately lit the blue light showing fully charged. After a few hours in the cradle, I took the remote out, and it immediately died as if no power. Back in the cradle the blue LED came on and the remote rebooted. Take it out, same thing.

Just as if the battery was not plugged in at all.

That was the last unit my dealer had. So I went to Fry's and bought a new NP-60 battery, and everything now works great. Tomorrow I'm gonna call URC about getting that defective battery replaced.

Sounds like URC has issues with batteries. Not impressive. Which is a shame, because otherwise this remote totally rocks.

keep us posted with the battery life of your aftermarket battery.

thanks.

Well, in URC's defence. They don't manufacturer batteries.

Yes they should be double checking the quality control of their supplier though.

I'll have to get back to you on this in a couple days. Right now I'm still having too much fun constantly tweaking the programming on the remote, which seems to use a lot of juice.

However, when the remote is just sitting idle it seems to be fine.

By the way, I called URC about the dead battery and they're sending me a new one. That had to have been one of the easiest and most pleasant product support calls that I've made in many years.

That's another problem IMO, when the remote is plugged to our PCs it should charge it, I actually set the brightness at the lowest when I'm tweaking it because the LED stays ON when plugged with the USB cable.

My battery last 3 days, but I'm still putting it back on is craddle every night. Even if the icon says it's still fully charged. (when it starts getting low it goes fast)

Hello. I just received my 980 and i'm trying to tweak it. The problem is that when I hook it up to my computer and try to download the changes, I get an error message: "Not Exist RCManager.exe." Any thoughts as to what I should do?

I resisted the temptation to reprogram the remote, and left it off the cradle for a couple days. At the end of the second day the 10% warning was going off. Note that I'm on vacation this week and the remote has been getting lots of use while I'm watching TV and movies.

The battery is one I picked up at Fry's. The name on it is "Digipower", and it's made in China, so I assume this to be a no-name poor quality-control Chinese company. The package claims 1050mAh, whereas the batter from URC says 1100mAh.

I ususally will buy Energizer brand replacement batteries from Batteries.com. The replacement they have for the NP-60 is this:

http://www.batteries.com/productprof...p?appid=374017

But it is only 850mah.

My URC battery is rated only 1000 mAh, I don't get great battery life but I charge mine every day so I have not had a problem.

I know there were a lot of problems with batteries in the recent past for all sorts of consummer electronics, I don't really blame URC if they just got a bad batch of batteries from China, I do hope it is not a problem of to low of a spec battery for the power draw of the remote.

Oh I certainly blame them. They not only supplied the battery, they even put their own name on the battery. At that point it is most definitely the URC reputation on the line. Plus, the remote is one of URC design and needs completely unreasonable amounts of power.

Don't get me wrong, this is easily the best remote I have ever used and I do not regret buying it. But the power consumption is both a design and QA failure.

I would only blame URC if they spec'd a too low amperage battery, at this point I am not sure if it is not just a bad batch of batteries.

I have a Digital SLR that can take twice as many pictures on one battery as it can on an identicle second battery, it is obvious to me that the second battery is underperforming and therefore is bad.

If URC replaces bad batteries they are taking responsibility for the problem, now if they end up redisigning the remote so it can take a larger capacity battery I would admit it was a flawed original design.

I really like this remote and it has worked well enough for me so far, but I always recharge when I am not using it.

I just don't understand the problem. I use the remote and put it on the charger when I get a chance...it usually lasts a couple days if I don't remember to put it on the charger. Unless a person uses the remote 24/7 I just don't get this rant.

Are you running XP or Vista? If you're on XP, check the version of ActiveSync you have. Some have had problems with newer versions of Active Sync. Use the older version 3.7.1. With Vista, Windows Mobile Device Manager must be installed.

Hi Folks, I've been eagerly reading this thread in anticipation of the arrival of my MX-980. I did find a website that sells a 1400mah battery...it's made in Japan, not China, so I don't think its a cheap knockoff. I am wondering if this might help?

http://www.bluenook.com/product_detail-pid-1958.asp

1400mah vs 1000mah is a significant difference, or at least I would think it would be?

Chris

i'll roll the dice and buy the wasabi battery as posted by Cfoote. please note the battery is made in china, click on the bigger pictures on the bottom of the link. it says "Premium cells from Japan" on the front and rear pictures says "Made in China" LOL! gotta love chinese marketing.

anybody having issues with their RF box? the RF box with the antenna is receiving my inputs but its not out putting to the tiny IR transmitters. it works very sporadically.
sometime it sends a delayed rapid burst of IR signals after i have been feverishly pushing remote buttons.

i am positive it's receiving the signal because the LED on the antenna box flashes based on my remote button input.

thoughts?

Let us know how you make out! Geez, those Chinese sure are smart I didn't even see the sticker. Well, let's hope it works, that would be great if it did...

the wasabi battery is ordered along with a $19 charger so i can have it charged and ready when needed. i should have both battery and charger next week. i will use it and post results.

the factory battery is lasting 2-3 days with little to moderate usage. we only watch tv in the evening so honestly, 2-3 days is pathetic if you ask me.

anybody have a clue about my 350RF issues?

The battery lasting as little as 1 day wouldn't be an issue, if you used the supplied charging/storage cradle. I'm sorry, but I can't wrap my head around why this is such an issue for you...?

read my original post at the top of this page to understand. my MX850 will last 2-3 months on rechargable AAA's. why can't the MX980 last a week or so??