Sometimes it just feels like an old friend. DIRECTV rolled out its RC24 remote about 12 years ago and it was immediately embraced. The previous remote was good, but here was a remote that just felt good in the hand, was easy to understand and worked for months on a pair of batteries.
About two years ago, DIRECTV replaced the old design you see in the picture above with the new Genie Remote. In a lot of ways, the Genie remote is better. It balances better in the hand, it communicates better over distances, and DIRECTV took away confusing buttons that people don’t use. The only problem is, they took away one or two buttons that people actually used, like the {STOP} button. They also consolidated the {PLAY} and {PAUSE} buttons into one, so if you’re used to pressing {PLAY} to know how far ahead you are in a recording, you’re now going to pause the recording every time you do that. Little changes like that have created a cult-like following for the older-style remote, because it still has all those buttons and will operate any current DIRECTV receiver in IR mode.
Not only that, the older-style remote will power on and control up to three other devices. The Genie remote will let you control the volume of an A/V receiver, but confusingly it won’t power the device on or turn it off. Let me say that DIRECTV is probably going the right way, as most people use a soundbar and the smart functions in their TVs, so they don’t need a complicated multi-device remote. But for those who do… it’s kind of a drag.
Good news for the folks who loved the old-style remote and want to use them… Solid Signal still has tons of them at a great price. This is the 100% genuine DIRECTV remote you know and love and it will control your Genie devices perfectly. You can still use the Genie Remote and you can use this one at the same time, so everyone can be happy!
