Review: RedEye for the AV Guy

The RedEye dock/app combo turns iPhone and iPod Touch into a useful AV remote over Wi-Fi or IR.

I've been accused more often than not of being anti Apple, yet my most adored and widely used gadget is my iPod touch, which lives in my pocket ready for use.

At the gym it delivers podcasts, taking the drudgery of exercise, and whilst waiting for the bus, Bejewelled literally makes time fly. About the only place I've not been able to find a use for my iPod touch is in the lounge.

At least that was until last week when I got my hands on a rather nifty RedEye dock and iPod app combo which has transformed my iPod touch into a key part of my home theatre setup.

This isn't a minor matter either. Like most AV addicts, I have a teetering pile of remotes which are at best counter intuitive, and more often than not just plain annoying. The right remote is never to hand, and having to explaining which remote does what to my long suffering spouse is about as much fun as root canal surgery.

RedEye has let me consolidate all my remotes onto a single iPod touch, and AV bliss has settled upon my household. Consisting of two components, the RedEye is made up of an iPod charging dock that is also in Wi-Fi/infra-red adaptor, plus a free application that is downloadable from the App store.

Your iPod Touch/iPhone then talks to the dock using Wi-Fi which is in turn translated into infra-red remote control-friendly commands that drive your AV gear.

Once configured, the RedEye has proven utterly brilliant in use. Within my Wi-Fi network I can whip out my iPod to turn on music, the telly or even my Apple TV, no matter which room I am in. Even better still, multiple RedEye docks in different rooms can be controlled independently.

About the only fly in the proverbial ointment was the thin documentation supplied which meant that setting up the RedEye application initially felt counter-intuitive. Perhaps RedEye should bundle a fold out "getting started" booklet.

This said, getting set up was as simple as entering in the make, model and a description of each of the AV devices I wished to control into the Redye app. The dock then downloaded the appropriate infra-red command sets and configured itself.

About the only device this approach didn't work with was the MySky box. This wasn't a show stopper though, as the RedEye dock had a learning mode where I was able to point the MySky remote at it and programme it up with all the MySky remote commands (Krome Technologies Ltd, the RedEye agent have since confirmed that the RedEye will soon automatically support MySky).

With my AV devices all entered into the RedEye app, my next step was to add activities.

This involved adding actions from in a list along the lines of "power on this AV device and then set it to that".

Once this was done, driving the RedEye remote software was activity based (e.g. watch a DVD, listen to music etc.) which proved significantly more intuitive than remembering a bunch of obscure button press combinations.

This said, the app can also be driven like an old school remote via on-screen buttons whose layout, size, shape are also fully customisable.

Once the app is fully configured, your kids, souses cat/dogs iPods touches/iPhones can also download the free RedEye application which will automatically pick up the settings you've specified, giving each householder their very own remote.

Transforming my iPod Touch into the beating heart of my audio/video setup, proved insanely useful. While the documentation bundled with the RedEye could be a little more verbose, patience in getting it set it up was rewarded tenfold by its sheer convenience.

Add to this the fact that the RedEye system can easily be expanded by adding multiple docks around the house and the RedEye easily becomes one of the most useful iPod Touch/iPhone accessory ever created.

RedEye Wifi/Infrared Universal iPod/iPhone Remote
RRP $499.00 incl GST