Review: Amulet Devices Remote Control

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Review: Amulet Devices Remote Control

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Damn that looks cool.  But I love my Harmony One.  Would also be very conveneint for people who have some disability and have a hard time using a remote, so they might consider expanding this into home automation.  For the right price it could be a big seller.

Nothing is more dangerous than a person who's title exceeds their intelect.

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Joined: 4 Apr 2007

I have to admit that I've always been very skeptical of voice controlled remotes, but this is really cool - the video does a great job of demonstrating that.

Biggest problem is that it's not as flexible as the Harmony for creating macros, custom buttons, etc. which would make it really hard for me to use at home.

Senior Editor | @babgvant

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Joined: 18 Jan 2008

Thanks for the review.  I think the product is great but it still suffers from one issue that plagues remotes...they can get lost.  That is why I think Kinect would make a better solution ultimately..doesn't get lost, can detect who you are and also has a silent mode (gestures).  But that isn't available for PCs yet and even if it did, some traditional users may feel uncomfortable with a camera tracking them.  So I think there is a market for Amulet's wireless mic/remote.

Curious, does Amulet utilize the speech recognition engine/profiles in Windows 7?  I've already trained my convertible laptop and would like to use my existing speech profile.  Also does this work on extenders?

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Joined: 1 Oct 2006

JohnCz wrote:

Curious, does Amulet utilize the speech recognition engine/profiles in Windows 7?  I've already trained my convertible laptop and would like to use my existing speech profile.  Also does this work on extenders?

yes, it uses the native Win7 speech recognition, and you can toggle and switch profiles on the fly via voice commands.

for extenders, the IR portion will work obviously, but the voice won't because the extender can't support the USB dongle required for RF.

Mike Garcen (shadymg) MissingRemote Editor-in-Chief Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP (formerly Media Center MVP) Twitter @mikegarcen MissingRemote on Facebook

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Joined: 19 Mar 2007

So I've had a chance to use the Amulet Review for the last 10 days or so.  My Harmony One is going on eBay later week...

Mikinho | Missing Remote | Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

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Joined: 21 Dec 2006

Seriously?  You prefer it that much over the Harmony?  I have trouble picturing myself choosing that over my Harmony remote.  (Granted, I don't have that option since I'm using SageTV, but I digress.)  Even after going through the entire review, while I was admittedly impressed, it just didn't seem like something I'd want to use.

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I've had the Harmony One since day 1 of its release and my family has always hated the Harmony One.  It took them less than a day to use and enjoy the Amulet Remote.

The Harmony One is a great universal remote but it still has so many shortcomings as a remote in my opinion.

Mikinho | Missing Remote | Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

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Joined: 21 Dec 2006

Maybe it's the Harmony One then.  I use the 890 and absolutely love it.

Server: WHS, SuperMicro dual Xeon X7DWE, 1 x Xeon L5410, Thermalright HR-01, 4GB Crucial ECC, 8 port PCI-X SATA, 4 port RocketRAID 2300, 5x1 PortMultiplier, Corsair HX1000W PSU, Lian-Li PC343B case [blog]
Storage:
2 x Addonics 5-in-3 bays, 13TB
Client:
SageTV 7, Windows 7 64-bit, Foxconn G9657MA-8EKRS2H, Core2Duo E6600, Zalman CNPS7500, 2GB Corsair, 320GB, HIS ATI 4650, Antec Fusion [blog]
Tuners: 2 x HD-PVR (serial control), 2 x HDHR, USB-UIRT

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Joined: 2 Dec 2010

hey,
I'm from Amulet, couldn't agree more about finding remote etc,
that's why I had to make this..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-2izbHeN-k

it's essentially the Amulet software (the music control bit) that works with Kinect (it even works with the xbox360 kinect) and it's free!

Steve.

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