Sofabaton U1 Universal Remote Control Review

Sofabaton U1 Universal Remote Control Review

Buy it at Amazon: Sofabaton U1 Universal Remote Control [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Easy to program, versatile, can be used with many devices.

You’ll receive the remote, a pair of AA batteries and a quick start guide. The remote measures 8” long, 2” wide, and 1” thick. There are three ergonomic finger grooves on the underside so you can hold the remote comfortably. Starting at the top you have a dedicated TV power button, 1-1/4 inch x 5/8 inch LCD screen, scroll wheel, device power, input selector, menu, home, and info keys, volume and channel adjustment, navigation keys, mute, back, rewind and fast forward, play/pause, rec, stop, four color coded keys, the 10 digits, dash, and E keys. All of the keys on this remote are customizable, so just because they have a symbol or value on them doesn’t mean you have to use them for that purpose. On the back you have the IR blaster at the top and the batteries for the remote are loaded at the bottom.

After installing the batteries, you’ll get a prompt on the LCD to connect to the Sofabaton smartphone app. Make sure you have Bluetooth enabled on your smartphone, if it's not the app will prompt you to turn it on when you open it. Then, on the Sofabaton remote, press and hold the dash and ‘E’ keys until the pairing prompt appears and connect with your phone. Programming your existing remotes to the Sofabaton U1 is easy, for example for the Fire TV, there's an icon for that in the popular devices section. The app will walk you through the steps necessary to add the remote's functions to the U1. You can select the device by device type and brand, then test the signals to ensure that they work, or manually add remote functions by programming in each key. Once your devices are saved to the U1, on the OLED screen of the U1 you'll see the name of your device and can switch between devices by scrolling the selector wheel. For each added remote control, the button presses on the U1 are responsive and accurate for the receiving device with little to no delay. For the Fire TV every feature from the original remote is present except for the voice command button, which won’t work because the U1 does not have a microphone. However, if you have an Echo device that can control the Fire TV in the same room, this is a moot point.

Manually adding in remotes not found in the device list is easy, though time consuming. The only issue you might run into is sometimes when programming a button, the button fails to sync. This may be because the IR blasters are not pointing at each other, are too close together or too far away. I found that playing a bit is the positioning of the remotes helps make transmitting the signal between the remotes for programming a bit easier. You can even customize the buttons to do new functions like perform a series of commands in a recorded macro or issue a command for a different device. Nearly any device that uses a remote including sound systems, air conditioners, lights, or even toys that use a remote can be programmed into the U1.

With the Sofabaton, I can control my sound system, Fire TV, projector, and more, all with the same remote control. No more juggling around separate remotes! You can store up to 15 different devices in the U1, and I also like that when you pick up the remote, the LCD automatically lights up. Overall the Sofabaton U1 was easy to setup, straight forward to program, and works really well to help you minimize and organize the amount of remotes you need to handle for all your devices. Only once has the U1 remote lost its connection from the Fire TV since I’ve had it but I reconnected it pretty easily. The IR beam is somewhat narrower than some of the original remotes though, so I found that for some devices I need a pretty good line of sight to the controlled device’s IR receiver. Other than that, I’ve really have no problems. And fewer remotes mean fewer batteries.

Buy it at Amazon: Sofabaton U1 Universal Remote Control [Affiliate Link]