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UR41A
toasterking:
I had not heard of the Griffin Beacon before but it looks interesting. However, the first couple of links returned by Google suggest that it is also discontinued. :(
HA Dave:
--- Quote from: toasterking on May 18, 2016, 05:39:09 PM ---I had not heard of the Griffin Beacon before but it looks interesting. However, the first couple of links returned by Google suggest that it is also discontinued. :(
--- End quote ---
Yes. But the app is still in apples store (a free DL). Once the app is no longer available... it won't be updateable (new devises won't be able to be added). So it is a $10 remote with a huge on-line library of codes. But... I don't know how long it will last.
I had a similar device. But when I got a new phone (iPhone 6SE)... I couldn't DL the app (even from the cloud).
Harmony-Logitech has a wifi device that works well (I had used one on another theater I built). Harmony-Logitech are fine remotes... but not the cheapest.
So there we are with some of the new app/cloud based products. Like [with] the X10 servers... things can end over-night. I don't have the answer to the new disposability of products.... home automation related or otherwise.
toasterking:
Good point about the cloud dependency. Philips abandoned the advanced remote control market years ago and I don't see nearly as many contributions on http://www.remotecentral.com for the platform as I used to, but it has a learning function which means it's not dependent on any code database to be maintained. As long as new equipment continues to come with a remote that uses digitally encoded pulses of infrared light with the common range of carrier frequencies, the way they have been making them since the early 1980s, I could theoretically keep using this remote forever with not a cloud in sight. (Even that is changing now that some equipment comes with a Bluetooth remote.) The same is true of most universal remotes with the same learning function. The Griffin Beacon also claims to have a learning function, so the same could be true of it. On most Android distributions (and on the recently-deceased BlackBerry 10), you can sideload Android apps without an app store like Google Play or Amazon App Store as long as you have the APK package file, although the app may not continue working in all future OS versions. iOS is a different story; it needs to be jailbroken to sideload apps without the store. But by the time you have to start using older phone hardware to run an older OS to keep this old app working, you've pretty much locked yourself into using abandoned hardware and software like I have.
HA Dave:
--- Quote from: toasterking on May 18, 2016, 09:44:37 PM ---Good point about the cloud dependency....... As long as new equipment continues to come with a remote that uses digitally encoded pulses of infrared light with the common range of carrier frequencies,...... (Even that is changing now that some equipment comes with a Bluetooth remote.) ....
--- End quote ---
Yep my Apple TV (streaming device) remote even has a built-in microphone so I can tell it what to search for (which is a Wi-Fi/cloud assist function). And... of course... both my Apple TV and my Roku have apps that I have downloaded on my phone (so my phone can remote control them as well). I am retired... and still I don't have enough time to fully enjoy all the streaming content available.
It would seem that the choices in both entertainment content... as well as ways to display and control the content is becoming near endless. As well as endlessly changing. Whatever choices we make today may seem questionable tomorrow.
dhouston:
I was impressed with this...
https://www.ray.co/ray-super-remote/tech
when it was introduced and I posted about it here as well as at RemoteCentral. It's Android based, has IR, WiFi and Bluetooth plus they told me an API was planned.
However, while it can learn IR codes, it cannot import CCF files and they told me they've no plans to add that capability. Teaching it even standard IR543 X10 IR codes would be a PITA and, AFAIK, there is no remote control that can send all of the IR543AH codes.
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