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Earlier this year, a start-up named Caavo launched an extremely impractical device to tame home entertainment configurations.
Caavo's original $ 400 TV box could carry up to eight HDMI devices via a single input, giving you access via a single remote control and menu system. This allowed scenarios that would otherwise be difficult to enforce, such as controlling an Apple TV with an Amazon Echo, or simultaneous search on streaming devices and cable companies. But it was flawed and expensive for what he was trying to do.
Now, Caavo is back with a $ 100 device called Control Center. It has only four HDMI inputs instead of eight, and it lacks the sophisticated wood panels and fabric-covered HDMI cables of its predecessor, but it does many of the same functions and even introduces some new features, such as the support for HDR video. It is also much smaller. (However, a service charge of $ 2 per month is required.)
For Caavo, the problem is no longer the hardware, but the software. Like the previous Caavo, Control Center does not yet integrate enough streaming applications, which goes against the purpose of its use. With a little more work, Caavo could be a great way to browse all your video content, even on one entry, but it's not ready to fill that role yet.
Jacks and games
The establishment of Caavo is quite easy. When you connect a new device to one of the Control Center's HDMI slots, it automatically detects the device and its name. You will then see a thumbnail window on which you can make sure that the Caavo remote controls the new device. You still need a phone or computer to tell Caavo which streaming services you subscribe to, a minor nuisance, but that will allow Caavo to integrate with those apps on your behalf.
Once everything is set up, the Caavo remote behaves like a universal controller, with buttons for home, back, menu and playback that work with most decoders, broadcast devices and game consoles. For traditional television services, there is also a button that displays a virtual keypad to access specific channels.
The key feature remotely, however, is its silver "Caavo" button, which brings up Caavo's own menu system. From there, you can search for devices and streaming services, switch inputs, access specific apps directly, and search for items to watch. When you make a selection, Caavo automatically switches to the appropriate entry, opens the appropriate application, then searches for and launches everything you have chosen.
This is only possible because Caavo controls all inputs and knows what is available on each one. It then simulates button presses – and in some cases uses computer vision techniques to recognize what's on the screen – to navigate. A garden-type universal remote, such as a Logitech Harmony, will not be able to do that.
New box, new towers
Despite the cost of a quarter of the price of the old Caavo, Control Center is actually outperforming its smaller number of HDMI inputs. The new box supports not only 4K video, but HDR 4K, and input latency has been halved to 30ms. This is still a noticeable lag for console games, but its limit is acceptable now.
The biggest change is on the software side. In the Caavo Watch menu, you can now create or browse playlists of movies and TV shows. These include playlists generated by users (people who have chosen to share lists publicly) and lists of professionals. The website decision maker, for example, has a list of all the latest movies on Netflix, while Complex has a ranking list of Harry Potter films Some "taste makers", such as comedian Alonzo Bodden and Nascar pilot Toni Breidinger, also have lists of favorite movies and shows.
The concept of a playlist is unlike anything you find on the home screen of an Apple TV or Roku. If Caavo works so well, it's because the latter is independent of the device and the service. If a movie is on both Amazon Prime and Netflix, Caavo will take you to the one you are already subscribed to. And if a Roku owner decides to create a public playlist, you can always check it on a Fire TV.
Still, I encountered some problems that made the functionality of the playlist less pleasant than it could have been. In some cases, Caavo had incorrect information about the content available on streaming services, so I would only make a selection to find that I could not watch it. And once you start looking at something, you can not automatically read the next item in the list. My dreams of building an 80s action movie marathon were quickly shattered.
Work to do
Despite all his interesting ideas, Caavo is even more useful in theory than in practice, largely because it does not work with enough streaming applications. Currently, Caavo includes 17 apps: Amazon Prime, CBS All Access, DirecTV Now, HBO Go, HBO Now, Hulu, NBC, Netflix, PlayStation View, Plex, Showtime, Showtime Anytime, Sling TV, Starz, TBS, TNT and Youtube. This is a tiny fraction of all streaming TV apps available today.
Even among the applications with which Caavo works, the support can be quite limited. For live TV services such as Sling TV and PlayStation Vue, Caavo is just a glorified launcher because you can not launch channels directly, access video-on-demand, or view your streaming queue. waiting for digital recorders. The search function of Caavo also does not include searches made in specific services. You can not say "comedy movies on Netflix" or "sci-fi movies on Amazon Prime". And since Caavo's remote only works with its own search function, you can not access the often higher search capabilities of devices such as Apple TV and Fire TV.
To be fair to Caavo, the company said it was working on many of these topics, including support for several apps in the near future and the ability to launch live TV channels via the menu Caavo. She also wants to improve her support for smart speakers such as Google Home and Amazon Echo. (You can control Caavo with these devices today, but the setup is cumbersome and launching a video may require multiple voice commands.)
At some level, it's a bit ridiculous that Caavo – or whoever, from elsewhere – is going through all these problems. Of course, modern television sets should allow users to create their own playlists and watch lists that work with any streaming service, because not everyone has the patience to go through half a dozen of applications every night. Of course, you should be able to research all streaming services and devices because your Smart TV should be smart enough to do it for you. Of course, your choice of voice assistant, be it from Google, Apple, Amazon or anyone else, should not dictate the entertainment devices you are supposed to buy.
The reality, however, is that television now represents everything that we now expect from the war of technology platforms, different companies isolating consumers from each other's services, and no single solution to wade into a quantity of content without steadily increasing.
You should not need a $ 100 HDMI connection box to solve these problems, just as you should not have used the original $ 400 Caavo to do the same thing. But if the Caavo Control Center can carry out all the promised features and application support, you may want to one day.
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