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Amazon Fire TV. Apple TV. Roku. Chromecast. If you feel overwhelmed by the growing number of decoders competing for seats under your TV, you're not the only one. In 2016, the average household had about three connected to the TV in their living room.
A multi-device approach is valuable, especially if you are investing in an ecosystem that should not develop beyond the first-party hardware (for example, iTunes) in the near future. But the problem is that these devices rarely play well together. Your Roku Streaming Stick + has no idea what your Amazon Fire TV Cube has to offer, just like your Xbox One, your PS4, your Apple TV, your Comcast Xfinity X1 and your Chromecast. The best you can hope for is that Netflix resumes its place where you left off last time.
That's where the control center comes in. It's a new $ 99 box from Caavo, the people who last year launched a limited-streaming streaming device designed to unify applications and fragmented entertainment services. Using a powerful combination of machine learning, deep linking, PLCs, HDMI-CEC, IP control, Bluetooth and infrared technology, the Control Center promises not only to offer you the electronics of a living room, but to make it cooperate as never before.
At least, that's the selling point.
Design
Compared to the first-generation Caavo high-end (which Caavo now calls the "Caavo Classic"), the Control Center is decidedly innocuous. While the former was meant to stand out – and did it a lot – thanks to the spun metal dowels and high quality blankets made of bamboo, mahogany and "exotic" zebrawood – the latter is much more subtle. He is supposed to blend in.
The control center is a case of black plastic piano that is perfectly smooth to the touch. From top to bottom – other than a raised and centered Caavo logo and an accent pawn in the lower right corner – it is as aesthetically pleasing as possible, which seems appropriate for a device that spends the most clear of its time in a case or enclosed in a cabinet shelf. My only quibble? It's a fingerprint magnet. A quick photo session was enough to cover the glossy top with grease stains.
A power LED on the front of the Control Center indicates when it's on (and when it receives commands from the included remote), but the back is a fleshy item. This is where you'll find four HDMI inputs (instead of eight of the first generation) and a single HDMI output, as well as Ethernet, IR, power and USB ports.
I guess Control Center's port selection will be fine enough for most configurations, but as a person who is constantly short of outlets and outlets, I would have liked to see a second (or even third) port USB for USB powered devices such as the Fire TV Stick and Chromecast. A second IR port would also have been a good idea (for greater flexibility in the placement of the IR blaster), but it is certainly a nitpick.
You will spend more time handling the Control Center battery powered remote control than the Control Center itself and, thankfully, it is serviceable. Caavo indicated that he was referring to "hot and pleasant to hold" objects when designing the remote control and that he was choosing a button layout corresponding to the overlay on the television (with the exception the glossy Caavo button, which displays the main menu of the box). The 16 buttons on the remote are not too hard to understand, and the oblong rubber "foot" near the top makes it easy to pick up on a table. But other elements have less success.
The directional pad can be refined with refinement – it's almost impossible to click without pressing the select button that surrounds it – and the thick, angular design of the remote does not hold as naturally in the hand as, say, the ergonomic remote control Fire TV from Amazon. Finish the wooden back panel of the Caavo Classic remote control, which has been replaced by plastic, which represents an apparent saving. And there's no actual backlighting – according to Caavo co-founder Andrew Einaudi, the backlit buttons cause users to look away from the TV to see the "feel-broke" buttons.
Gallery: Remote Control Center
For the defense of the remote, it has some features that most others do not have. The capacitive keys trigger a pop-up window describing their function when you linger at them. And placing an order on an Amazon Alexa speaker ("Alexa, open Caavo, find my remote") or Google Home ("OK Google, tell Caavo to find my remote"), or by turning on an Apple TV with the The companion app Caavo Wizard installed, you can activate the built-in speakers of the remote control for that they emit a series of notes – the couch cushions are damned.
If the control center's remote control does not make your boat float, it is of course not forbidden to use device remotes. Game controllers and decoder controls will work as they have always done; The Control Center automatically detects when you use them and displays the corresponding device on your TV. It's pretty cool.
Universal remote controller
Caavo, at the base, is a universal remote control and does not disappoint in this respect.
The simple integration process prompts you first to connect the control center to the Internet via Wi-Fi or Ethernet, then to create a Caavo account by visiting a web page and entering a PIN on the screen. You will then be asked to specify the manufacturer for your time zone and TV, and start with the (surprisingly easy) task of configuring Control Center to use your devices.
It is not necessary to specify which boxes, receivers and dongles are connected. Caavo automatically detects all of them (including your TV). In addition, a clever picture-by-picture view, with instructions, avoids changing input.
Here is a complete list of devices that Control Center officially supports:
- DISH (all Hopper, Joey and Wally receivers)
- DirecTV (all devices connected to the network)
- XFINITY (X1 devices)
- FireTV (all models)
- Roku (all models)
- Nvidia Shield TV
- Apple TV with Siri Voice Remote (Generation 4 or later)
I did not experience any major issues during installation, but some devices took longer to work than others.
Fire TV, for example, requires a complementary application for the deep link feature. (In short, deep links allow Caavo's software to launch specific applications or content items without having to re-launch the homepage or a specific channel.) Thanks to intelligent artificial intelligence and Bluetooth, everything is done automatically. the Fire TV, navigates to the Amazon Appstore list of Caavo Companion, installs it and launches it. All you have to do is select an IP address and enter a code.
After the last box is configured and the control center completes the firmware upgrade, the Caavo Home screen greets you. It is divided into five sections: research, devices, applications, monitoring and settings.
The Peripherals menu is more or less a glorified input selector, with a rectangular grid layout for each broadcast, game, and decoder at the tap. (In my tests, switching from one device to another took about five to ten seconds.) The Apps screen, as you can imagine, prioritizes the available services (Netflix, YouTube, Amazon , HBO Go) on your devices; selecting one starts the appropriate box and launches the application or the corresponding service. (Caavo creates associations between devices and applications at the time of installation, but you can override these defaults in the Settings menu.)
Personally, I found that the watch was the most convenient way to launch a stream. If you chose to connect apps to your Caavo account during installation, you will find a list of TV shows, movies and miniseries recently viewed on any of the services displaying the Screen above, including local applications such as Plex. . And if you subscribe to Dish, Xfinity or DirecTV, this is also where you will see the recordings of your DVR. (A minor problem: if you turn off your DVR or place it in a place where Caavo can not control it, your watchlist will not be kept up to date.)
By far the the coolest One of the ways to navigate Caavo's menus is search. It sounds a bit like the universal search offered by Apple TV and Roku devices, but much more powerful: the pecking of a TV show or a movie title, a network, a A director, an actor or a theme gives results likely to be suitable, as well as summaries of plots of land, genres, years of release, times of execution, associated programming and web results. (The movie's geeks might find its brevity a little disappointing – the cast lists and anecdotes can not be found, nor the aggregate synopsis scores from Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB.) From there, you can cast streams on the service of your choice (including those for which you have already purchased content), or save them to a list for later use.
If you do not expect anything attractive right away, several categories on the left of the screen will help you clarify your search. Here you'll find Live and Upcoming, which will provide you with the latest updates to your pay-TV provider's guide (except for Internet-only offer guides such as Sling TV and PlayStation Vue, which are not still supported); Streaming, which searches for online services; and Web, which displays the results in Control Center's lightweight Web browser. If you have associated a Plex media server account with Caavo, you will see an additional tab with Plex-specific content.
The Control Center's remote control has a built-in microphone that surprises with its ability to pick up voice commands. By pressing the microphone button, you're ready for shopping: Say a command like "Watch Top Gun"Or" & # 39; Search The Incredibles"Start a search in seconds flat. It's fast like lightning.
Caavo's voice recognition engine supports more than search queries. In addition to mute or suspend a current stream, you can switch to a channel number on a connected cable or satellite box ("Watch Channel 42", "Watch HBO"), search for an application ("Search Netflix" ) or source ("Roku search") or search on a specific decoder ("Search for Suit on Roku ").
It should be noted that Caavo does not support the voice features of native boxes; the remote can not access Siri on Apple TV or the Google Assistant on Android TV devices. For domain-specific commands, you must stick to the original remote controls.
The other interesting vocal tip of Control Center is the integration with Alexa of Amazon and Google Assistant. The Caavo skill on both acts as a hands-free remote control, allowing you to perform all of the aforementioned voice commands without having to rely on the remote.
My Google Home speaker is within earshot of my living room and has quickly become the preferred way to interact with Control Center. A power-on intention ("OK, Google, tell Caavo to turn on the TV") and voice search (Play "Strange things") M provided 90% of the way of reading, but not quite – Control Center lacks a selection command.
Improvements and changes
The Caavo Classic has lost points with critics by omitting support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) and audio features such as Dolby Atmos, which Caavo describes as limiting the Caavo Classic chipset.
If none of them tell you anything, here's a quick look:
HDR includes a number of competing specifications, including Dolby Vision and Dolby HDR10. In simple terms, it takes advantage of the greatly expanded color depth and brightness supported by the new high-end TVs to produce more natural and vivid images. While a flat screen produces an average of between 300 and 700 nits (a nit equals a candela or the intensity of a candle), HDR compatible displays can hold up to 4,000. And they maximize the 12-bit color instead of the traditional 8-bit – the difference between 68,7 billion colors and 16 million.
As for Dolby Atmos, this is a standard that extends 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound configurations to create more "immersive" experiences. It can technically operate up to 34 speakers (the maximum recommended is 12), but specially designed Dolby Atmos systems, such as the Onkyo SKH-410 and SSCSE modules (and spare modules) ) of Sony imitate its multidirectional effects by directing the sound up, which bounces it. ceiling.
Apple TV, Roku Ultra, Roku Streaming Stick +, and Nvidia Shield are just some of the devices that support Dolby Atmos and HDR formats. Unfortunately, I am not in possession of any of them and I do not have an HDR compatible TV either.
I was able to test the other main functionality of Control Center: organized watch lists. They live in the Watch tab of the main menu under two categories, "For Your Consideration" and "Crowd Surfing". Caavo says that they are also available in the Caavo TV & Movies Guides app for iOS (with an upcoming Android version). the next weeks).
Gallery: Selected playlists
To complete the first, Caavo is associated with publications such as Popular mechanics, Squire, The country life, Road and track, and She to launch ideas on lists such as "The 11 most stylish television series of the 90s", "15 classic movie dream rooms we love", "The 10 best movies of all time" and "45 years among the best of all time ". Halloween Movies for Kids. And she's associated with "taste buds" such as Trisha Hershberger, Alonzo Bodden and Terence Blanchard for tailor-made recommendations on television and movies.
Playlists in "Crowd Surfing" are crowdsourcing. This is where members of the Caavo community, including people with a control center or Caavo Classic, can submit their own genre compilations. At the top of the list at the time of publication are "Spicy Pumpkin Scars", "Things Will Soon Be Weird", and "Cool Shows for the Cops"
"We've created this feature to make it easier to explore recommendations from one service to another," Einaudi said in a phone interview with VentureBeat. "These are influencers and individuals from the Caavo community who create and share playlists [that are] totally unbiased … We really have a user base of what we call "entertainment obsessed" – a community of people watching and recommending television together.
This objectivity distinguishes Caavo's recommendations from competitors, he said, many of whom have "a horse in the race".
"The premium content industry spends about $ 5 billion, [which I estimate] will reach $ 9 billion next year, "said Ashish Aggarwal, director of technology for Caavo. "The number of choices will be huge."
While it is true that there are many entertainment choices in recent times, I am not convinced that reading lists offer more than the myriad of ongoing curation efforts. There are FilmStruck, Mubi and the Criterion Collection, to name just a few examples, as well as specialized streaming services such as Shudder, Hayu, Crunchyroll and Spuul. Caavo has the advantage of platform agnosticism, but it remains to be seen if people will pay $ 20 a year (or $ 2 a month) for a control center service plan.
Then again, they could just. This same plan allows universal search, voice control, deep linking and control of voice assistants. Without this, the Control Center is a glorified universal remote control.
Closing thoughts
"Caavo should not have existed in the first place; no one likes an extra device. The landscape is changing, but not fast enough, "Aggarwal said. "The control center is a way to tame the beast [for] people overwhelmed by the world of streaming. "
Control Center more or less reaches this goal and does it much more elegantly than some of the universal remotes I've tried. But this remains a niche product, and as a moviegoer living in a small apartment with a Samsung Smart TV 2014, I'm definitely not in the target population.
That said, Caavo investors believe there is a market. Since 2015, the San Francisco startup has raised $ 32.5 million from Time Warner Investments and Lauder Partners (as well as existing investors, DCM Ventures, Greylock Partners, Sky, Hearst and Silicon Valley Bank), according to Crunchbase.
I share their feeling. People with 4K HDR-compatible displays, Dolby Atmos surround sound configurations and TV subscriptions will find a real benefit in being able to seamlessly switch between screens, as well as families with children, parents, or grown-ups. -parents who do not want to learn the quirks. IR-based solutions.
I'm just not one of those people.
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