There are a few ways to turn your phone into a remote control — an instantly appealing idea since most of us lose our phones far less often than we lose the remote. The Griffin Beacon makes it both relatively cheap and quite easy to do so for your entire home theater setup with either an Android or iOS phone or tablet.
To use the Beacon with iOS, you just download the Dijit remote app from the iTunes store (free) and connect your device through Bluetooth. The Beacon itself looks like some kind of modern art sculpture from a Japanese garden. The base looks like your average black entertainment device, less than 4″ square, but atop it sits a shiny, red-black, rounded rock. You press the rock down until its blue light flashes, which indicates its connection to your device.
Image source: DijitThe setup is similar for Android devices (any running version 2.3.3 or later). You download Digit from the Google Play store instead, of course. Ratings are better for the iOS version–some Android reviewers have had trouble with the Bluetooth connection and setup. Like many apps, it either worked perfectly or not well at all, earning mostly reviews on each end of the spectrum.
My Beacon had no trouble finding most of my devices in its list of hundreds of thousands, and the one that it didn’t find was easy to set up through prompts for selecting make and device type.
The Beacon connects over Bluetooth, which on some phones can be more of a battery drain than on others. Know your phone and know whether you should keep the plug (or spare battery) nearby. As for the Beacon itself, Griffin says that you should get eight weeks of battery life. I got significantly less than that, and other users have reported similar problems. When you’re used to a couple of AA batteries lasting in your TV remote forever, that can be annoying, and the Beacon doesn’t have an AC adapter. (Of course, some enterprising users have figured out how to make one.) Just remember to keep rechargeables handy. You almost certainly have enough other devices that need them as well!
The actual remote portion of the Dijit app is not a thing of great beauty, but it is functional, and in the end, that’s what matters. There are simple choices for your remote, and you can adapt them to your personal choices by adding or deleting buttons.
Once you’ve got it all set up, you’re ready to use your one-stop remote control. You can add a television guide that will help manage your channels and DVRs by entering your ZIP code and selecting the correct broadcast provider.
Overall, I have had a positive experience with the Beacon and the Dijit app. Setup was easy, and it works well at what it is meant to do. That said, others have reported significantly more trouble. Amazon reviews are occasionally ecstatic (presumably people who had the success I did) with a lot of one-star reviews, most of which have to do with the battery-eating and some who had trouble with Dijit. If you’re willing to deal with regular battery changes and are looking for an attractive universal remote solution, I recommend giving it a try.
The Griffin Beacon lists for $79.99 but as of this writing is available on Amazon for $38.35 for iOS devices or $41.96 for Android:
I received a Griffin Beacon for review.
