The 3660 family
The sections of this page follow the order of the User Manual that comes with the remote, and seeks to compare what you can do with the Remote Master software and a JP1 cable, compared to the Remote on its own.
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About this family of remotes
These remotes include the One For All URC-3661 (Europe), One For All URC-3680 (USA), Onn URC-3660(Walmart, USA) and Insignia NS-RMT8D21 (Best Buy, USA). There is also the Insignia NS-RMT5D21 which has only four device buttons but also limited access to an Audio device. The URC-3660 and URC-3661 have six device buttons, but are capable of controlling eight devices but only if used with RMIR. The other two have eight device buttons. In the URC-3660 and URC-3661, RMIR refers to the missing buttons as "Dev4" and "Dev8". In addition, the NS-RMT5D21's two further missing device buttons are labelled "AUDIO" and "Dev7". There is also a missing Activity button on this one, referred to as "button5". You can access the devices without a button by putting Dev4/Dev8 (or AUDIO/Dev7) in a macro. More about Macros later. There are powerful features on these remotes which are enabled with RMIR, in conjunction with a JP1 cable which connects to your computer.
Setting Up Your Remote
In the manual that comes with the remote, you are shown how to use built-in device codes to set up your devices. This may be adequate for your needs, but on occasions, not all buttons on the original remote will become available on your remote. In some cases, buttons may not be in the right place, or to your requirements. With RMIR there is another way.
Your remote is able to "learn" signals from your original remote, and RMIR is able to decode those signals, in such a way that you can build up your own device code. You can then use the accompanying RMDU program to create your own Device Upgrade. The disadvantage is that it takes time and patience. One advantage is that you can get every button exactly where you want it. Another is that you can often get information to add one or two extra controls that were not originally on your remote, for things such as Discrete On and Discrete Off, as opposed to a Power Toggle button. Such controls are very useful in macros to turn everything on or off, without things getting out of sync, and you can often find them out by asking on the JP1 forum.
You can find out how to add devices from other JP1 users, or to create your own from scratch, on this page. You should read the entire page, and also this one, which shows how to make a JP1 cable.
Volume Punch Through ("Volume Lock")
The manual for your remote shows you how to lock your volume and mute buttons so that they always operate the same device. However, on the "General" Tab of RMIR, you can assign "Volume Punch Through" individually. So, for example, you can set volume controls on your BluRay device to operate the Volume on the TV, but the volume on a different device (say a CD player) to operate the volume on your amplifier. You only get this flexibility with RMIR.
Multi Macros ("Channel Shortcut Macros")
This is where we get to the real power of this remote, in conjunction with RMIR.
RMIR, on most remotes, enables use of a short press of the "Setup" key, in order to add a Shifted state to each key (two short presses for number keys). But with this family of remotes, there is also the Multi-Macro.
In the Remote’s manual, you are shown how to put a sequence of numeric macros on the four colour keys, representing your favourite channels. Using the Red button as Sport, if, instead of briefly pressing the Red button, which sends the normal signal associated with that button, you press and hold it for a couple of seconds, you will get the channel you programmed in, and if you do another long press, it will go to the next one in the list. These macros can be global or device-specific.
However, if you use RMIR, the macros can include keys other than numeric keys, and each macro can be put on almost any key. Not the three App keys (between the colour keys and the numbers), the Rewind/FastFwd keys, nor the device keys. And they will clash with the short-press function on a key where the short-press function involves a key move (including Volume Punch Through) or a macro. But on most keys they will work properly.
Of course, a Macro can have just one step, and there doesn't have to be more than one Multi-Macro on any given key. As an example, if on your BluRay device, you put a single Device Specific Multi Macro on the Stop key, with just one stage which sends the code for "eject", then if you press the Stop key briefly, the BluRay will stop playing, but if you press and hold it, the disc will be ejected. If you do want to have more than one multi-macro on a key, they are executed in the same order as they appear on the Special Functions tab.
Another example is the Power key. You can use a short press to send the normal Power function to a device. A long press can be used to run a macro which will switch off the device and also other devices needed to use that device. For example, the BluRay player would have a macro on the long press to switch off the player, the TV and also the amplifier.
You have 10 phantom keys (i.e., keys that are not physically on the remote, but which you can allocate in RMDU and include in macros) and 10 shifted-phantom keys per device. This gives you plenty of options for Shifted keys and Multimacros.
Real-Time Macros ("App Shortcut Keys")
The Manual describes three App Shortcut Keys which can learn a macro that you enter in real time, giving the opportunity to wait for certain functions to have taken place before you press the next key. Once learned, you can just press the key and the remote sends the signals, remembering the times for which keys are held down, and the delays between them.
With RMIR, you can place these macros on any key, global or device specific. You can actually write them from scratch, or edit the time for which each signal is sent, and the delay between signals.
Activities
The Manual describes "Activities" which allows you to have groups of keys from different devices working at the same time. There are more choices than given in the manual (for the URC-3660/1 at least) which involve Dev8 as the audio device. But you need RMIR to access Dev8 on the "6 Device" remotes.
The Manual shows "AV Shift" and "Power Macro" as separate headings, but these are tied in with Activities. With "AV Shift", pressing the AV/Input key brings up a TV menu to change the input, and for 10 seconds, the Arrow Keys and OK operate the TV. However, on some TVs, pressing the Input (AV) button cycles through the possible inputs, so you don’t need it to temporarily allocate the arrow keys and "OK" to the TV. Where it does, you may wish to use Activities, but RMIR provides an alternative. If not using activities, it’s still possible to write Key Moves to the Input/AV button so that it always sends the signal to cycle through inputs to the TV. "Power Macro" sends the Power signal to every device involved in the current Activity, but using standard Power keys on the remote which will be toggles. Sometimes the toggles get out of sync, and it’s possible to write your own (device specific) macros for the Power key, to make use of Discrete Power Off signals where known.
If you don't want to use the inbuilt activity settings, but write your own macros instead, RMIR offers a function for this remote on the Advanced drop-down menu, to Disable activities. NOTE: This feature is available from version 3.0.0, released on 13 June 2023. Once you have done this, you can allocate the Activity keys as normal keys, or write macros on them. Unless you do this, anything you put on those keys won’t work. So, as an example, you may allocate a macro to the "Watch Movie" button, which switches on your TV, BluRay player, Amplifier, selects appropriate inputs and leaves the remote buttons controlling the BluRay player, except for Volume Punch Through controlling the amplifier. Depending on your devices, this may or may not be a better plan than using the built-in Activity feature. But without RMIR, you don’t have the choice.
More Features
Macros
The manual doesn't even mention ordinary macros! With RMIR and your JP1 cable, you can put an ordinary macro on any button except the device buttons. It can be global or device specific. For example, the power button, under the BluRay device, can have a macro that switches off the BluRay player, the amplifier and the TV. Remember earlier that they were all switched on by pressing the "Watch Movie" button.
Backlight
The Remote has a backlight, which can be switched on and off by a button at the bottom of the keys. When on, and a key is pressed, the backlight lights up for 10 seconds. RMIR allows you to change the time it lights for, there’s an entry on the General tab for this purpose. RMIR also allows you to allocate a function to that key! This would mean that every time you operated this function, you’d also be switching backlighting on and off. If you don’t want backlighting, you can set the time on the General tab to zero. This won’t stop the backlighting altogether, but it will be very short, a fraction of a second.
In normal use, if backlighting is on, you have to press a key to light up the remote. If you want to operate it in a darkened room, the backlight button can be felt at the bottom of the remote. Press it once to turn backlighting off, press it again and the entire remote will light up.
Fast Forward, Rewind and Skip
There is a feature, undocumented in the official manual, where the signal sent by the Fast Forward and Rewind transport controls, depends on how long you hold the button down for. A short press sends a different signal to a long press. In the RMDU program, these alternatives are labelled Rewind, Rewind(Held), FastFwd and FastFwd(Held). Some people use the short press function as "Skip", forwards or backwards as appropriate. Some people prefer to use the longer press for this purpose. As for the built-in devices, there isn’t a great deal of consistency between the two. If you design your own device, as per "Setting Up Your Remote" above, you can, of course, allocate these keys to your own preference.
User Manuals
Here are the original user manuals for this family of remotes: