Digital Home Thoughts: Building in Better Learning in Our Gadgets

"I have a lot of gadgets. MP3 players (got an iRiver Clix to check out too!), cameras (still need a new one…), convergence products, media servers, media players, etc, etc, etc. Not a single one of them can learn a thing from me, and I don’t understand why. Before you get too skeptical on me, let me be clear: I am not talking about “learning” as in artificial intelligence (AI), I just want them to have a few behavioral modifications. My first example is my new Harmony 880. Works great, about 90% of the time or so. Every now and then it misses a command, or in some way gets ‘off’ with the living room...But when I first started, it could never get the Gefen to switch right. So I clicked Help, and followed the on-screen ‘yes/no’ options until it worked. Eventually I went back to the Harmony setup application on my PC and found I could ’slow down’ the commands to make it more reliable (which did in fact work like a charm). I think it would be very easy for Logitech to add a bit of intelligence to the Harmony. Maybe after doing the same thing 3 times the remote could say “please dock to your PC for an update”, at which it uploads the info to the PC, and the PC application can have enough smarts to say back to me: “there is a problem with your activity, let’s try to fix it.”"

I have exactly the same remote, exactly the same problem, and exactly the same frustration. In fact, when I saw the Harmony remote prompts about whether or not something was working properly, and it accepting my input to correct the problem, I thought it would actually change the program. No such luck. I need to sit down with my laptop in front of the TV and try to re-configure the remote so that it all actually works. Sometimes gadgets are so cool, but not quite functional...