Because I happen to know the Remotsy Kickstarter guy - I hit them up for an early copy of the device that's currently on Kickstarter. I met him outside of his possibly highly illegal lair high in the mountains of west Texas for a sneak peek.
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| Erick's Sinister Laboratory |
Remotsy is a box that can replace most of your remote controls and can work with Amazon's Echo (probably the only device that does - which is pretty cool). There's a web interface and an upcoming app for Android/iOS that lets you still control everything when the TV remote disappears.
The best thing about it though - is that it can integrate with SmartThings and Amazon's Alexa. You can yell at Alexa while sitting on the couch to change the channel - but that's not where the device shines. If you are in and out a lot, and especially if you have kids - this thing is a life saver. Combined with SmartThings - you can make complicated rules to things automatically. I really wish I had this when I had small kids - being able to turn on Cartoon Network automatically at 7 AM would have saved me a lot of sleep. If you like the TV as background - you can have SmartThings turn it on when you get home and turn it off at bedtime or when you leave. It's pretty damn awesome.
I don't have the cases yet - but the device is really small. Here it is with the required banana to compare against.
When you plug it in - you just have to connect to the device wifi once to set it up.
And then set it up with your Remotsy email and WiFi and you're good.
Once you enable the Alexa skill and the SmartThings interface, it just works. Really it's no different than a light switch or anything else you add. You add the device with a name that Alexa can understand - and it just works.
"Alexa - turn on the TV"
And it turns on.
That's pretty damn cool.
Find the KickStarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1882345838/remotsy-wifi-remote-for-alexa-and-smartthings.
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