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A friend of mine is looking for a remote control that can control a TV, Sky box, soundbar and Fire stick. But wait for it, it's for his 80+ year old parents, so it needs to be easy to use. I'm impressed they have all of these device and know how to use them!
Do any of you have any practical experience with such a universal remote control?
Thanks
The Sky remote (which I presume they can use) itself should do the telly side of things, and maybe even the soundbar, with the right codes applied to it.
The stumbling block will be the firestick, which isn't infrared, I think, but bluetooth, and stubbornly incompatible with Sky remotes.
What apps do they use on it? It might be worth them looking into Sky Q (it's possible they may get upgraded for free), as most if not all of the main streaming apps are available directly from it.
I had the older version of this, the new one supports fire stick: https://www.oneforall.com/en-gb/universal-remotes/urc7945-smart-streamer-remote
At the time I used an old hifi for speakers so it could control volume for that and also do the Roku and all the other stuff.
Firestick support HDMI-CEC, ie controls over HDMI so if the TV has direction/select/etc buttons on the remote it may be able to do the firestick bit. If the TV and soundbar support HDMI-ARC then that's a far better way to connect - for the most part it just works, TV knows it's connected, TV volume controls work the soundbar, no chance of having TV and soundbar doing sound at the same time.
My parents have Sky Q, it's a much easier experience for people used to the Sky interface who also want the catch-up and streaming services. They just use the Sky remote 99% of the time.
Sounds like what he needs is ‘The Megatron’ 😃
On a serious note, this….
My parents have Sky Q, it’s a much easier experience for people used to the Sky interface who also want the catch-up and streaming services. They just use the Sky remote 99% of the time.
You can access pretty much everything through a Sky Q box, thus only ever needing the one remote. Plus the voice activation thing makes it even easier. You don’t actually need to press anything, just tell it what you want to watch
You don’t actually need to press anything, just tell it what you want to watch
Strictly speaking, you have to press a button while you're chatting to it, then again when it mis-recognises what you want and sticks Mrs Brown's Boys on while you frantically press everything to get rid of it.