Two years ago I would head off to work each morning with the following items in tow. My cell phone, my iPod, my personal Palm PDA, my work issued Palm PDA, and my portable satellite radio. Today I head out the door with my iPhone, and that’s it. It’s amazing the number of deceives that are no longer needed thanks to the iPhone and the App Store. Think Flood, the makers of RedEye are aiming to make one more device obsolete. The universal remote control.

Review

RedEye from Think Flood is a combination of an iPhone app and a hardware receiver/transmitter. With the RedEye system you can use your iPhone or iPod touch to control your TV, stereo, cable box, DVD player, and many other devices that receive standard (infrared) signals. Your iPhone or iPod touch communicates with the RedEye device via Wi-Fi, which sends commands to your home entertainment center via infrared. The RedEye device can join your WiFi network or create it’s own ad-hock network. You will want it to join your own network so it can access the internet to download the remote codes for all your devices. The RedEye device also serves as a dock and charger for your iPhone or ipod Touch.

The first time you launch the app and connect with the RedEye device you load a few updates. All updates and codes are stored on the device itself, but it uses the iPhone app to get those things. What is nice about it storing the codes on the device instead of your iPhone is if you have multiple iPhones in your family, any one of them can launch the app and have everything on it that they expect.

The first thing you set up is a Room. For each Room you set up you can add a Device, Devices are then used to create Activities. It is these Activities that you build your custom remotes for. Say you are setting up your living room. First you enter the set up page in the iPhone app. Create a new room and name it what you want. Then you would choose a device, say a TV. Type in the manufacture and model number and the RexEye app goes out to the internet and downloads all the codes for that device. Then you can create an Activity called, for example, Watch TV. You add your TV Device and then you can add whatever commands you want to use and build a custom layout for the remote for this Activity. You can even have it do things on launch. For example, say you want to create an Activity for watching a DVD. After setting it up, when you launch that Activity it will turn on your TV, set it to the right input, turn on the DVD player and your Audio Receiver all with one tap. The possibilities are nearly limitless. If a device’s IR codes can’t be found, you can teach them to the RedEye device with the real remote from that device.

Setup takes some time, but it’s a one time thing. Do it once and it’s good to go forever.

The RedEye device needs to be plugged in and set in a location that it can be “Seen” by all the equipment you want it to control. It has a very good range and transmits a strong IR signal. I have it on a side table next to my sofa and it works like a charm. You might think there would be some lag for the signal to hit your TV. You enter the command on your iPhone, it travels over your WiFi network to the RedEye device and then it sends out it’s IR signal. I Really didn’t have an issue with any type of delay waiting for commands to be sent out. It really is pretty seamless.

Since the device connects over Wifi, the receiver can be in a different room than your equipment. If you want it to control your Media Server that is in a closet down the hall, it can. That is a huge benefit over a traditional universal remote.

Once you take the time to set it up I think you will really enjoy using this system. I know I have. But there is some room for improvements.

1. I would rather this was a device that could sit it my entertainment center’s cabinet and have an IR blaster attached to it. Having to find a place to set it up in the room can be a problem for people. Which leads to #2.

2. it has to be plugged in. If they got rid of the charging dock it could run on batteries making it’s placement in a room less of a hassle. As it is now has to be close to a power outlet. Sitting on the coffee table in the middle of the room would great, but then you have this power cable to attach. Getting rid of the dock charger may also help to solve problem #3

3. The Price. $188.00 seems a little pricey. If they could hit that $99 price point this system becomes a lot more attractive.

4. It’s still a little buggy. The Software still has some bugs. For one, If you leave the app running and put your iPhone to sleep, when you wake it up the app crashes. Every time. So then you have to relaunch and reconnect. It only take as few seconds but we are used to remotes being an instant action device. I am sure this is something that will be fixed in an update.

These points aside, I really like this system. I have a remote for my TV, Blu-Ray player. Audio receiver and an iPod Touch to control the Mac Mini Media Center on the arm of my sofa at all times. With this, I can just have the iPod Touch and control everything in my living room.

So can the RedEye system let you get rid of the universal remote you have? Maybe. I still like grabbing the remote and pause the movie instantly if the phone rings. With the RedEye, I have to wait for everything to connect. It’s not a long time to wait, but it’s not as fast as a universal remote.

Tips

Read the directions and watch the how to videos on the ThinkFlood website. Do not even attempt to set this up without doing this first. I consider myself pretty tech knowledgeable and spent a good 2 hours getting angry and frustrated when if I had just read the directions, setup would have gone much smoother. While setup is not intuitive, it isn’t difficult if you follow directions. I can see where many people would get down on this system and say it doesn’t work when in fact, they simply didn’t read all the directions. That is exactly what happened to me. I had to do a factory reset on the device twice during setup to start over again simply because I didn’t take the time to read the directions and watch the videos.

Recommendation
I would recommend the RedEye system to people who have a need it can fill. If you have a Mac Mini Media Center, it’s close to a must buy. All your devices controlled from the iPhone is awesome. The RedEye app is Free and is available through the App Store right now. The hardware is $188.00 and is available at the ThinkFlood Website.

YouTube Video

Photos

Note: A promotional RedEye device was supplied for the purpose of this review.

Please post your comments, tips, and your own reviews below in the comments area!

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