For a few years in the late 2010s, the tech industry decided that the ultimate luxury was doing everything through a smartphone app. You could control your lights, your lock, and your television all from the glowing rectangle in your pocket. However, we quickly learned a valuable lesson: practically speaking, your phone makes a terrible TV remote.

The Friction of the App

Imagine you are watching a movie and the doorbell rings. With a traditional remote sitting on your lap, you can hit the pause button blindly, by feel alone, in a fraction of a second. Contrast that with using your smartphone: You have to pick it up, unlock it with your face or passcode, locate the specific app, wait for the app to reconnect to your local Wi-Fi, and then find the digital pause button on the glass screen. It's an enormous amount of friction for a simple task.

The Return of Tactile Control

Because of this frustration, the smart home industry pivoted back to dedicated, tactile remote controls. The pinnacle of this evolution is the Control4 Halo remote, released in 2023.

The Halo bridges the gap perfectly. It features a brilliant touchscreen at the top to let you swipe through Spotify playlists or view a live feed of your porch camera. But crucially, the bottom half consists of heavily machined, backlit physical buttons. You can rest your thumb on the volume rocker without looking away from the screen.

The Guest Experience

Another massive drawback to app-only control is the guest experience. If you have a babysitter or a visiting houseguest, you don't want to force them to download an app and create an account just to watch Netflix. A dedicated smart remote sitting on the coffee table is instantly recognizable and intuitively usable by anyone who walks into the room.

Ready to reclaim your coffee table from a pile of five different plastic remotes? At Ultra AV, we can consolidate your entire media setup into a single, elegant Control4 Halo. Contact us today to upgrade your home theater control.