Recommend me an inexpensive remote control for my HTPC

fightinfilipino

so i recently built a nice little HTPC for our living room, but quickly found that using a typical wireless mouse/keyboard combo to be a tad cumbersome. so i come to you, good forumers, for suggestions on a good HTPC remote!

the ideal remote would have a keyboard for typing and some sort of control scheme to allow for ok mousing when needed. also, if possible, i'd like to be able to power on the HTPC by just using the remote. as far as i can tell, this last one is a bit of a difficult thing to find...

so far i've found things like this, and the pricier Logitech offerings.

i'd really like input from people who have actually used some remotes though...

Forar

You can't power on using it, but I picked up a remote mouse app for my iphone and downloaded it onto my computer for activation during start up. While built as a gaming PC, it's linked to my tv and surround sound, so it doubles as the manner in which we watch TV as well.

Gotta say, sitting on the couch using my phone to pull browser windows from the monitor to the TV, entering in a show name and then watching a couple episodes is pretty sweet.

matt has a problem

I have this for my HTPC and I love it.

Lenovo N5902

The black dot is an optical track pad/left click, it has actual L/R mouse buttons (the silver ones), and although you can't really see it in the pictures, there's a touch-scroll line between the black dot and "Lenovo", for, well, scrolling. They keyboard is responsive with an auto on/off backlight, like typing on a BlackBerry almost, and it has media keys across the top.

ArbitraryDescriptor

I run XBMC on my htpc and use the official xbmc android app on my phone.

I believe you can power-on the box via the app if you have wake on lan set in the bios

Foomy

http://www.simerec.com/PCS-2.html or http://www.simerec.com/PCS-1a.html is what your looking for to turn on your htpc from any IR remote. it can learn from any button you choose on the remote, and really easy to install.

I got one for my own htpc a couple of years ago, love it so much.

Thrack

I've had one of these for years but stopped using it because it was so terrible. The I switched to mouse without borders and controlled it with a laptop. I also use an old MCE remote I got with a Hauppauge tuner card to actually navigate media center and play/pause/etc. It has a power button on it, but pushing it just puts the PC to sleep and I have to push the power button on the case to turn it back on.

Decius

After using the Microsoft MCE Keyboard and Remote for years, I went out and bought one of these for my HTPC. It's great. Has Logitech reliability, uses RF, and has multi-touch if you want to go Win8.

emp123

I use this and I really like it but apparently its no longer available. Well, theres this but its $20 more than I paid.

Mom2Kat

Decius wrote: »

After using the Microsoft MCE Keyboard and Remote for years, I went out and bought one of these for my HTPC. It's great. Has Logitech reliability, uses RF, and has multi-touch if you want to go Win8.

Yup the K400r is what we use to and its awesome.