At home, we have many devices of all kinds, and when it's time to turn one on, the sheer number of remote controls creates chaos. Luckily, there are universal remotes, small control centers that manage each and every device in the house so you can forget about the rest. The problem? The user experience is often quite unpleasant. But that's where NEEO comes in.
And the bad experiences are not because of the configuration and management of the devices, but rather because of the way in which everything is developed. Many of the universal remotes are still copies of the same old remotes. A device with hundreds of buttons that looks more like a simple device than a smart one. There are other options like the Logitech Harmony that include screens to make everything more visual, but the quality of the components makes everything work against it. Personally I have been able to use a Harmony Ultimate, and it was slow to work, with a very responsive screen and with more buttons than I would like to count.
What can we do with NEEO?
- Forget about all the controls at home
- Turn on the lights
- Play a Spotify playlist
- Turn on your Xbox One, TV and start playing right away
- Control your Sonos speaker
What differences are there with conventional controls?
- A large screen of excellent quality will attract your attention
- The design is spectacular
- A switchboard will be in charge of controlling everything
NEEO is a stylish controller with great potential
The NEEO project began several years ago with crowdfunding. I had the opportunity to interview its creator a couple of years ago at CES in Las Vegas, and that's where I first learned about the platform's great potential. In addition to its high-quality hardware, the platform thrives on user feedback, continuously growing with new compatibilities and options that enhance device performance.
The equipment arrives accompanied by a central unit that will be in charge of managing the profiles and recipes that start up your multimedia center. This unit is called the Brain, and is responsible for sending signals to all devices thanks to its infrared emitter with 360-degree coverage. And it is here where the first differences of NEEO begin, since the remote control works through WiFi, and not with infrared signals like other controls, the brain being in charge of carrying out these tasks.
The scheme will therefore remain as follows. The NEEO remote establishes a permanent connection via WiFi with the brain, and the brain is the one that sends the signals to the devices, either via infrared (in most cases), via WiFi, Ethernet, Bluetooth or with the Z-Wave Plus standard.
Beyond remote controls
But if you thought it all came down to controlling remotes, you're wrong. The advantage NEEO offers is that its central unit can communicate with devices you would normally control through apps on your mobile phone, such as smart bulbs, Spotify music on a Sonos speaker , or even turning on an electrical outlet. All of this can be managed from the remote, and even better, you can create complex recipes to activate several devices simultaneously. For example, if you want to watch a movie on the projector, you only need to run the "Home Theater" recipe, and NEEO will lower the motorized screen, turn on the A/V amplifier, turn on the Apple TV, turn on the projector, and finally, dim the ambient lights to 30%.
The path to simplicity is difficult
The problem that we see with NEEO is that for everything to be perfectly configured you will have to do numerous tests until you find the key. In the best of cases, if all your devices have an ignition that allows you to report their status, the remote will know at all times if the device is off or not and, therefore, handling will be carried out without incident whatever the situation. device status.
But unfortunately today we continue to have somewhat more basic devices that do not report this state in which they are. In my case, a satellite receiver gives certain problems when I go from one source to another. For example, if the receiver is already turned on, if I want to switch from using the Apple TV to the satellite receiver, NEEO sends the command “On” by default, which has the opposite effect on the receiver. If I had a device with information about its status, everything would work correctly, and we would not find a black screen.
The solution is none other than to manually turn the receiver back on, something that can be done without problems from the NEEO, but which is a step that we obviously would have liked to avoid. This is not NEEO's fault, moreover, the command proposes solutions for it, but it does serve to give us an idea of the many things that we can find when there is such a wide range of devices on the market, and that in the end, we must thinking about how the devices are before pressing a button, something that a smart remote should save us.
The smartest and most capable controller to date
But what is clear is that its creators have managed to bring to life a device that completely changes the experience at home. The remote becomes a useful and practical device in most cases, and thanks to the switchboard, our mobile phone or tablet can also perform the same functions as the NEEO remote thanks to the official application.
This application is the tool from which we will create the different recipes to control all our devices, a very simple operation thanks to the assistant that it offers during the process. From there, we will only have to enter the model of our television, so that the database returns the exact product. From there, it's a matter of adding our multimedia arsenal and creating schedules to our liking.
Dependence on its creators
The main problem we found with this spectacular remote is that it can't learn infrared codes from other remotes. The Logitech Harmony I used previously was able to create a new profile by receiving infrared pulses through a receiver located on its back. Thanks to this system, if a device wasn't in the Logitech database, we could add it ourselves using this learning method.
Unfortunately NEEO does not have this system for now, since it is based exclusively on the database that the manufacturer has created. It is constantly evolving and growing (it has more than 60.000 references), but it is possible that the infrared control of your motorized screen brought from China is not on that list. You can always request the incorporation of the profile in the official forums, and although the support is quite active, it is difficult to attend to all the requests. The strange thing is that the control unit does include the learning mode, but the manufacturer has not yet included the function in the software.
The price
And we come to the key point that largely defines the success of a product. NEEO is a very special product, bordering on a very specific niche. The arrival of smart devices in homes makes this remote control a very useful tool to be able to control everything that surrounds us, but deep down, where we are going to get the most potential is in environments with numerous multimedia devices.
For this type of user, the remote control is a vital tool with which to have control of the entire house, and it is this type of user who would not mind paying the 389 euros that the control and control unit set costs (this The latter is essential for the remote to work). A very high amount for a remote control.
Why is NEEO so expensive?
The components used in the creation of the product guarantee a quite amazing operation compared to what we see in current smart remote controls.
NEEO Features
NEEO command
- 3-inch IPS screen of 800 × 480 pixels (291 dpi) with reduced frames and anti-fingerprint glass
- 4 MHz ARM Cortex M168 processor
- 32 MB of RAM
- 802.11 Wi-Fi b / g / n
- IEEE 802.15.4
- Accelerometer
- Battery 1.200 mAh
switchboard
- 7GHz ARM A1,2 processor
- 1 GB of RAM
- 4 GB storage
- Ethernet
- 802.11 Wi-Fi b / g / n
- Bluetooth 4.0
- Z-Wave Plus
- Infrared 360 degrees (extendable with cable included)
- HDMI CEC