ThinkFlood RedEye vs Gear4 UnityRemote

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › ThinkFlood RedEye vs Gear4 UnityRemote

SumnerBoy

2074 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#79185 14-Mar-2011 13:34

Came across these two devices and was just wondering if anyone has one or both and can comment on a few things.

I like the UnityRemote form factor better, but it runs on batteries only, has no dock, and is bluetooth only. The RedEye doesn't look as nice but it can be used on your existing WIFI network, has a built in dock/charger for an IPhone/Touch and is run off the mains.

Just wondering what the latency is like for these devices, and whether bluetooth or WIFI has more/less.

Also - would be interested to hear any thoughts on the apps themselves - how intuitive they are and the ease of use/configuration. I see that the RedEye app supports displaying EPG data - does anyone know if this will work in NZ?

Sourcing them from Amazon.com the price is comparable (UnityRemote $US99, RedEye $US115).

SumnerBoy

2074 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#448944 16-Mar-2011 16:43

Bump - no one come across either of these devices?

stagnant16

206 posts

Master Geek

#448971 16-Mar-2011 17:38

SumnerBoy: Bump - no one come across either of these devices?

Bought The Redeye though amazon a couple of months ago;

Very easy to set up, only requires setup to be done once and that flows across all idevices with the redeye app.

The app is a little rudimentary but does the job, unfortunately the ekg only supports the US and Canada.

Cheers

SumnerBoy

2074 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#448974 16-Mar-2011 17:41

Nice one mate - did it have the MySky IR codes in the database or did you have to manually program them?

stagnant16

206 posts

Master Geek

#448983 16-Mar-2011 17:55

SumnerBoy: Nice one mate - did it have the MySky IR codes in the database or did you have to manually program them?

Don't have myski sorry - But it should be able to find it under the manufacturer's name. I found that that most of the Pace commands worked for my old sky decoder and it was fairly easy to learn new commands.

You can also design your layout through a web interface which is a big help!
One thing I found I didn't like was everything is an activity. If you look at my picture it's named watch TV, you can only enter one activity at a time and each activity requires a power on and power off command (although you could substitute a command that does nothing).

The downside being lets say you have multiple devices you wish to control at any one time - You would have to include all buttons under the one activity and the iphone / ipod's screen is simply not big enough, although you can add more buttons and scroll down, I would prefer horizontal swiping but the app doesn't support it; i.e. one page for TV one for Sky etc etc.

I hope that makes sense :-)

Lizard1977

2061 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#449264 17-Mar-2011 15:21

This sounds really intriguing, given my disappointing experience with the Harmony remote. I have an iPhone, my wife has an iPad and we have an iPod touch which is now lying around acting as a music server for the stereo, so a universal remote setup that used the iDevices in our house would be excellent.

I've looked at the RedEye website, and I thought I saw somewhere that it allows for assigning buttons within an activity for different devices (e.g. volume control buttons for surround sound when watching TV). Your comment seemed to suggest that you can't control multiple devices within one activity. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

april4thinkflood

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#449443 18-Mar-2011 02:40

Hello everyone,

I'm an employee for ThinkFlood and came across this forum post and wanted to point out that we recently added EPG data functionality for the UK.

We don't yet have the proper licensing to add EPG data for New Zealand, but we plan to add it (as well as out other markets) as soon as we can secure the rights to do so. These things take some time - so I don't have a date to offer. But know that it's something toward which we're working.

If you ever have any questions about your device - please feel free to contact our support team: support@thinkflood.com or feel free to join our customer forums http://thinkflood.com/login.

stagnant16

206 posts

Master Geek

#449455 18-Mar-2011 07:54

I've looked at the RedEye website, and I thought I saw somewhere that it allows for assigning buttons within an activity for different devices (e.g. volume control buttons for surround sound when watching TV). Your comment seemed to suggest that you can't control multiple devices within one activity. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

Sorry, yes you can control multiple devices within the same activity, but on a smallish screen it does start to look a little busy, that's why I would prefer the ability to have multiple pages rather then scrolling down to find buttons.

The Ipad version is a little better with more screen space available but even then you can only use half the screen for controls, the other half is for the EKG and if that is switched off the app doesn't allow you to use that space.

All up it's an excellent device that's probably not as polished as it could be, fingers crossed for some more updates.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

SumnerBoy

2074 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#449558 18-Mar-2011 13:12

Thanks for that feedback Stagnent. I just ordered a RedEye from Amazon (US) - cost me just over $NZD180 incl. shipping so pretty happy with that price - they were $US117 on Amazon + shipping, down from $US188. Pretty good deal!

Currently I only have an Ipod Touch and will use that initially. But am looking to upgrade to an Ipad at some point. Just not sure whether I need to wait and pay the extra for the Ipad 2.

Am looking forward to playing around with the codes and buttons and getting things setup best for me. And the news that they are working towards including the NZ EPG is very exciting! Once we get that I will be definitely getting an Ipad!!