Remote controls are an area of deep personal interest. There are so many things that need to get nailed on the hardware and software sides to create the perfect one. Sofabaton nailed the hardware with the X1S.
Read more
Harmony has been pushing its control ecosystem beyond the home theater and into the more general home automation space recently, with the Elite topping the lineup. The $350 price tag is a bit hard to swallow vs. its ~$130 siblings (what I use), but there are a few advantages to stepping up. Earlier this year I reviewed the Harmony Companion (former […]
Read more
I was very impressed by singlecue when I played with it at CES, but they seemed to drop off the map soon afterwards so I assumed, that like many slick things you see at CES, they’d missed their date or disappeared. Well it looks like it was the first, as IIRC the gesture based remote was supposed to ship in […]
Read more
There is a point in scaling out a home theater where a good universal remote control becomes an essential part of the experience. Yes, you can get by with the pseudo universal that came with the AVR, but then you have to train your family, and worse the babysitter, how to use that in a productive way. They need to […]
Read more
Finding the perfect universal remote is something of a personal quest for me. I’ve seen, and used, a lot of them and unfortunately I’m still on the hunt. With that in mind I will check out pretty much anything in the space where the vendor is trying something new or interesting, and even then I set the bar low in […]
Read more
One of the coolest things about actually being at CES, is that you get the opportunity to discover small vendors that get buried or ignored in most coverage – blumoo is exactly that. Essentially it’s a tiny computer that you attach to your A/V stack that acts like a Bluetooth audio receiver and much more interestingly a universal remote control […]
Read more
It has only been a few weeks since we received word that the Ceton Companion app for controlling Windows Media Center from mobile devices had hit Release Candidate stage, and now comes word that the Ceton Companion app is officially available. At this point, Ceton Companion is available as a universal app on iOS and for Android through Google […]
Read moreNow this one was too unique to not pass along. The author had a miniscule budget and a handy PS3 remote control, and goes through the steps on making it into a remote control for an XBMC. The steps are far from basic, but hey, it seems to work! In the interest of my budget ($10, set by the soon […]
Read more
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is underway in Los Angeles, and despite the convention’s video gaming focus, there is more home theater and media news to be found there each year. This year is going to be no different, and Nintendo was the first to let slip an interesting tidbit. Nintendo isn’t scheduled to take the stage at the […]
Read more
I couldn’t sleep the other day so I finally got around to building the IP based remote application for HTPCs that’s been rattling around my head for the past few months. In its default form IP-RC6 acts as an IP based remote that listens on a configurable port but it also supports UPnP for broader controller support. The application attempts […]
Read more