Remote being used
Onkyo RC-801M
Profile: Samsung DVD
Pros
+ Works with any IR remote. I could control my TV, Receiver and the Dish box with my Onkyo remote. Adding FLIRC to the mix, now I can control the HTPC too with the same remote.
+ Can wake up HTPC from sleep with the remote.
Currently I use a logitech bluetooth keyboard with touchpad to control my HTPC. This works very well as I have full control over the HTPC. However, the bluetooth keyboard cannot wake the HTPC from sleep. With FLIRC, I can wake up and control the HTPC with my Onkyo remote itself. Note that I could get this to work only with beta firmware v6.
+ Buttons can be programmed to peform any function on HTPC.
My remote does not have a page up/ page down button which is useful for navigating long lists. So I programmed the "Next" and "Previous" buttons to perform the page up/ page down function.
Cons
- Not very beginner friendly
The information to correctly setup FLIRC for your remote is strewn across multiple places. For example the main website says "Easy Setup". But there is no link to a setup guide. The FAQ is hidden under the Cross Platform Support page. A lot of information to correctly setup FLIRC is in hidden in the forum posts. There should be troubleshooting guide. The website needs some real reorganization.
- Setup is buggy
The first time I programmed it, FLIRC would respond to the buttons only intermittently. The down arrow would always work. The up and side arrows worked only some time. I though the dongle was a lemon. I reprogrammed everything and did some unplugging, replugging, restarting etc and everything started working.
- Need to find a suitable profile on the remote through trial and error
The forum users have mentioned that the Samsung and Panasonic TV profiles work well with the Harmony remote. However, I have an Onkyo remote. I found through trial and error that the Samsung DVD profile worked better than the TV profile. But finding this is a time consuming process.
Overall
After some initial hiccups, my remote is setup perfectly to have full control over XBMC on my HTPC.