In recent years, the concept of the home theater PC has really started to take off. With new items like SFF cases, as well as cases designed to fit in with other standard 17” HT components, and silent cooling devices, a regular PC has become a powerful alternative to the expensive, limited storage and function TiVo that Joe Average has. That said, keyboards and mice make lousy remote controls, which is where Ahanix's iMon remote comes in.
Ahanix builds a few of their own HTPC cases, and their new “RSC” remote has been designed to outshine the competition, such as ATi’s Remote Wonder.
While the Remote Wonder uses Radio Frequency, Ahanix has chosen to use standard IR for the RSC. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. RF can tavel long distances and through walls, and is not dependant on line of sight, the latter of which is extremely useful for things such as wireless mice. In a home theater situation it’s less important, since you would generally point the remote at what you are trying to control anyway. One situation where RF would be useful is if the PC is in another room, with an A\V feed to your home theater. The iMon RSC could be used in a situation like that, you would just need to place the IR receiver in the HT room, with a USB cable running back to your PC.
The advantage that IR has over RF is that 99% of remotes and components use it. The Sony RM-VL1000 that I use as my HT remote was able to learn all of the functions from the iMon RSC without a problem, and this would in turn allow me to program macros to, for example, turn on the TV and switch it to the proper input, launch PowerDVD, and start playback, with a single button press. There are RF universal remotes, like the URC Home Theater Master MX-800, but that is a $400 remote.
Included in the box is the remote itself, the IR receiver, software CD, and a small bag with a set of batteries, a small “pedestal” for putting the receiver on a table, and some two sided sticky tape if you wish to permanently mount it.
