Onn Remotes Work Fine Until They Don't
I picked up an Onn universal remote about three years ago because it was eight dollars at Walmart and seemed like the kind of thing you'd only need once. Turns out I moved it from TV to TV in my house constantly, and every single time I needed to reprogram it I ran into the same wall. The code list printed on the back doesn't cover half the devices people actually own anymore. That's the practical reality most guides skip over. The first approach nobody tells you about is the auto-search function. Hold the device button and the power button simultaneously until the LED blinks, then press channel up repeatedly. The remote cycles through roughly 300-400 codes automatically. When the TV turns off, press the device button to lock it in. This takes about ninety seconds and works for 70 percent of standard TVs. Not all of them. Samsung and LG sets have been problematic for me specifically because their IR protocols shifted around 2019 and the Onn's memory banks weren't updated to match. When auto-search fails, you move to manual code entry. You need the brand name, the model number of whatever device you're trying to control, and the right code from an expanded database. The standard code sheets that come with the remote top out at maybe 80 brands with 3-5 codes each. That's it. The full database is significantly larger and scattered across a few different sites.
The Onn code lookup page on WalMart.com has the official list. It updates occasionally but lags behind new device releases by six to eight months on average. I found that the RCA code databases work surprisingly well for Onn remotes because they share the same underlying chip architecture. One RCA code that failed on a 2021 Vizio TV worked perfectly when I tried it on the Onn the next day. There's overlap I haven't seen explained anywhere officially. I had a specific problem with a Samsung QLED QN85A that refused to respond to every single code in every list I could find. Auto-search cycled through the entire range and the TV never powered off. I eventually figured out that Samsung's newer models use a different IR frequency band that older universal remotes struggle with. The workaround was switching to the code list for Samsung TVs made between 2014 and 2016 instead of the current-year list. The remote sent the signal at the older frequency and the TV responded immediately. It's counter-intuitive because you'd expect the newest codes to work best on the newest TV, but the firmware change happened mid-generation and the code set didn't update consistently.
Where to Actually Find Working Codes
Beyond the Walmart page, my Go-To resources are the DISAVDS universal remote code database and the Remote Codes website. Both maintain extensive tables organized by brand, year, and sometimes model number. The DISAVDS list for Onn remotes alone contains roughly 2,400 entries across 180 brands. That's a big jump from the twenty or thirty codes on the paper insert. Here's what most people don't realize about these code lists: the codes aren't ranked by likelihood of working. They're listed in order of release date for the most part. So code 001 for a given brand might work perfectly on 90 percent of devices from that brand, but it appears at the bottom of the list because it was added to the database recently. I always start from the top and work downward regardless of when the code was entered. This alone cut my programming time from about twenty minutes per device down to three or four. For streaming devices like Fire TV sticks and Roku boxes, the code lists are almost useless. Those devices don't respond to standard IR power codes in a meaningful way. The Onn remote can control volume and basic playback through a separate learning function, but you need to point the remote at the device itself during setup, not at a receiver. I wasted two hours on this before realizing the instructions on the back of the remote assume you're programming it for a traditional AV setup with a receiver in the middle.
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The Limitations Nobody Mentions
Onn remotes use older IR technology. They don't do Bluetooth or RF. If your device doesn't have a visible IR receiver window on the front, this remote won't control it at all. That includes most modern soundbars that sit below a wall-mounted TV and most game consoles placed inside entertainment centers. You'll see plenty of forum posts from people swearing the remote doesn't work, and ninety percent of the time the problem is line-of-sight, not code selection. The memory is another bottleneck. The Onn universal remote stores roughly twenty device profiles maximum. If you're running a TV, a soundbar, a cable box, a Fire Stick, and a PS5, you're already at capacity. Some profiles share codes, which means changing one device's code can break another. I've had this happen twice where updating the code for a new TV I bought wiped the settings for the soundbar I'd already programmed. There's no backup function. You just re-enter everything from scratch. There's also no app support. Cheaper universal remotes in this price range from other brands sometimes offer smartphone apps with searchable databases and one-tap programming. The Onn doesn't. Everything is manual entry or auto-search. It's a deliberate cost cut but it matters if you have more than three or four devices to program.
If you need something more capable and are willing to spend twenty to thirty dollars more, the Logitech Harmony Elite handles all of this automatically through its app, syncs with your phone, and creates macro commands that the Onn can't touch. But if you're just trying to get an eight-dollar remote to work with your TV and soundbar, the manual method described above covers the vast majority of cases. Start with auto-search, fall back to the DISAVDS database, and remember that older codes sometimes work better on newer equipment than the latest entries in any list.
