Some men dream of winning the lottery or running off to Fiji with Keira Knightley. I dream of having a single remote to control every TV set, DVD player, and stereo system in my house. I'd wear it in a holster on my hip and sleep with it under my pillow. Best of all, I'd take the cluster of remotes occupying my coffee table and toss them into the largest landfill I could find.

There are two kinds of universal remotes: the ones included with custom-installed home theaters that somebody else programs for you, and the programmable ones that you can buy at Electronics R Us for a couple hundred dollars. Since I haven't won the lottery (yet), I looked at low-end to midrange controllers from Philips, Logitech, and Universal Remote.

Besides controlling each device, these babies allow you to create macros so you can press one button to turn on your television, launch your DVD player, and switch your A/V receiver over to surround-sound mode. Sounds dreamy, doesn't it? Unfortunately, my dreams started to crumble when I put the remotes to the test.

Polished Philips

Certainly the slickest looking of the three, Philips's SRU9600 ($150) has a 1.5-by-3-inch touch-screen LCD that changes depending on the device you control. To program it, you pick the type of device, use a click-dial to scroll through a looong list of manufacturers, and hold down OK while the remote finds the codes. Programming it to automatically perform all of the functions to, say, play a DVD or a CD is as easy as recording a keyboard macro on a PC.

In most cases the SRU9600 worked fine, but I had to manually train it to work with my Magnavox DVD/VCR player by putting it nose-to-nose with my old remote and alternately pressing buttons on each device. Finding the up, down, and side directional buttons essential to navigating TiVo also took me a while. Even so, the SRU9600 was easily my favorite. (If you're having trouble tracking it down, try Sharper Image.)

Imperfect Harmony

To program Logitech's Harmony 550 ($150), you connect it to your PC's USB port. Logitech's Web-based software prompts you for type of device, maker, and model, and then downloads the right codes to the remote.

The 550 controlled most of my devices without a hassle but seemed totally flummoxed by my Sony CD Jukebox. Worse, the remote's LCD is only about an inch square, so you have to scroll through multiple screens (22 of them for my Pioneer A/V receiver) and puzzle out cryptic commands like 'MoveSur+' (though you can use the software on the PC to change the names of the commands).

The software has its own problems. For example, when you're programming activities like 'Watch a DVD', it's easy to get stuck in an endless loop. And if you aren't careful, the Harmony CD installs nagware that pops up plugs for other Logitech products. To its credit, Logitech offers free phone support, with native English speakers and minimal hold times. The bad news is, you'll probably need it.

Universal Life

Any gizmo that comes with a nearly 1-hour instructional DVD doesn't inspire much confidence. And while the disc for Universal's R7 does a good job of explaining the remote's intricacies, you'll need a number 2 pencil, a notepad, and more patience than I could muster to get things working. The R7 has cool features the others don't--like the ability to control sound for all devices without switching between them, and the ability to turn everything off with one button--and at $50 it's certainly priced right. But be prepared for a lot of trial and error, and multiple training-DVD viewings.

Of the three, the Philips offers the greatest control with the least amount of hassle. But I would keep the other remotes in a drawer nearby, just in case. And, Keira? I'm ready to leave whenever you are.

Contributing Editor Dan Tynan is the author of Computer Privacy Annoyances (O'Reilly Media, 2005). You can send him e-mail at gadgetfreak@pcworld.com.