Like me, you probably have a dozen "universal" remote controls gathered over the years. With each new device and remote you go through a process to try to figure out special codes to enter into the remote to train it to operate your other devices. And it's never very good, except perhaps in the expensive remotes with screens and macros.

The first universal remotes had to do this because they were made after the TVs and other devices, and had to control old ones. But the idea's been around for decades, and I think we have it backwards. It's not the remote that should work with any TV, it's the TV that should work with any remote. I'm not even sure in most cases we need to have the remote come with the TV, though I know they like designing special magic buttons and layouts for each new remote.

It would be trivial for any TV or other device that displays video to figure out exactly what sort of remote you are pointing at it, and then figure out what to do with all its buttons. Since these devices now all have USB plugs and internet connections, they can even get their data updated. With the TV in a remote setting mode (which you must of course reach by the few keys on the TV) a few buttons from any remote should let the TV figure out what it's seeing. If it can't figure out the difference it can ask on the screen to push specific buttons until you you see a picture of your remote on the screen and confirm.

If it can't figure it out, it can still program the codes from any device by remembering. This would let it prompt you "push the button you want to change the channel" and you would push it and it would know. You could also tweak any remotes. But most people would see the very simple interface of "press these keys and we'll figure out which you have." Also makes it easy to have more than one device of the same type. But in particular makes it easy to not have so many "modes" where you have to tell the remote you want to control the TV now, then the satellite box, then the stereo, then the dvd player. Instead just tell the TV "ignore the buttons I am about to press" (for example the volume buttons) and tell the stereo to obey them. Or program a button to do different things on different devices -- not a macro where a smart remote sends all the codes needed to tell the TV and stereo to switch inputs while turning on the DVD player, but just each box responding in its own way.

For outlying cases, you could tell the user to program their universal remote for some well established old devices. Every universal remote there is can control a Sony TV for example. That makes it sure the TV will know a set of codes.

The TVs and other devices might as well recognize all the infrared keyboards out there while they are at it.

Of course, as TVs figure out how to do this, the remotes can change. They can become a bit more standardized, and instead of trying to figure everything out, they can be the dumb device and the AV equipment can be the smart device. It's the AV equipment that has storage, a screen, audio and so much more.

You can also train devices to understand there are multiple remotes that belong to some people. For example, the adult remote can be different from the child's remote, and only the adult remote can see the Playboy channel, and is kept private. The child's remote can also be limited to a number of hours of TV as I first suggested six years ago at the birth of this blog.

You can even fix the annoying problem of most remote protocols -- "on" and "off" are the same button. This makes it very hard to do things like macro control because you can't be sure what that code can do. You can have a "turn everything off" button that really works (I presume some of the ones out there use hidden non-toggle codes when they can) or codes to do things like switch on the DVD if it's not already on, switch video and audio inputs to it, and start playing -- something many systems have tried to do but rarely done well.

There are a few things to tweak to make sure "IR blasters" work properly. (These are IR outputs found on DVRs which send commands to cable and satellite boxes to change their channel etc. They are a horrible kludge and the best way rid of them are the new protocols that connect the devices up to IP or the new IP over HDMI 1.4, or failing that the badly-done anynet.)

But the key point here is this: Remotes put the smarts in the wrong place.