Fewer folks want a common distant management nowadays, which explains why the class is dying and nice choices are exhausting to seek out. But when your home-entertainment system is extra advanced than the fundamental media participant, TV, and soundbar combo, and also you’re searching for one distant to regulate all of your gear, the Sofabaton U2 Common Distant Management is the most suitable choice we’ve discovered. This mannequin has some notable flaws, however it could management a greater diversity of home-entertainment units, and it has a greater bodily design than its opponents.
Our choose
This distant can management 15 AV elements, together with Bluetooth-based units, and the button structure is intuitive. But it surely lacks backlighting and exercise buttons, and programming superior duties could be difficult.
The Sofabaton U2 Common Distant Management provides extra options and management choices than equally priced opponents. It may well management as much as 15 units, together with each infrared- and Bluetooth-based AV units, so it’s extra versatile than many lower-priced remotes, which generally work solely with IR units.
The distant’s button structure is intuitive, and the OLED display on the high makes it simple to change between the AV units you need to management. You may program the U2 utilizing a setup app for iOS or Android, and the app offers loads of customization choices to reassign what the distant’s buttons can do.
Whereas the U2 distant is best than every little thing else we examined, it nonetheless has some notable drawbacks. It lacks backlighting, and it has no devoted exercise buttons for grouping totally different units collectively to carry out duties comparable to “watch TV” or “watch a film.” You may nonetheless create actions and assign them to random buttons, however you need to determine all of the programming your self—and we concern that the app’s studying curve could also be troublesome for somebody who has by no means programmed a common distant.
Runner-up
This distant can management eight AV elements, has a logical button structure, and is totally backlit. However it could’t management Bluetooth units, and the setup course of is archaic.
The Insignia 8-Gadget Backlit Common Distant is an effective selection for folks whose gear works by way of infrared management (IR); it doesn’t work with units that you just management by Bluetooth, radio frequency (RF), or Wi-Fi. For those who’re undecided how your machine is managed, do this: Level your machine’s distant on the ground in the other way from the machine’s location after which press a button. If the distant nonetheless executes the command, it’s seemingly utilizing Bluetooth or RF, not IR.
This totally backlit distant can management eight units and has all of the essential buttons you want, together with three exercise controls that assist you to group units collectively to look at a film, hearken to music, or watch TV. The structure is clear, albeit considerably generic-looking, and the buttons are pretty massive.
The programming course of is old-school, although: It’s important to manually enter codes in your totally different AV units after which train the distant any features which are lacking or executing incorrectly. These steps usually are not as fast or intuitive as utilizing an app, and the proprietor guide will not be as clear and concise because it could possibly be. However on the finish of the method, this distant ought to be capable to do most every little thing you want it to.
