There aren’t many universal remotes for the Smart Home. For a universal remote, it’s very important to have good integrations with the devices you want to control. The new Matter standard, a universal standard for Smart Home devices, could make this a much easier task. The SwitchBot Universal Remote supports Matter and in this review we will look into more detail of this Matter integration, as well as other integrations of the remote, such as IR devices and SwitchBot’s own Smart Home products.
Features
The SwitchBot Universal Remote is a lightweight device (133 g) with a screen and several buttons to control your devices. It supports Infrared, Bluetooth and Matter, which allows you to control your IR devices, Apple TV, ChromeCast and also devices with support for Matter. Next to the remote itself, you will receive a USB-A to USB-C cable and a Reset Tool. It’s available in white, but a black version is already visible on Amazon, but currently not yet available. It contains a 2000 mAh battery which lasts around 5 months depending on your usage. With the IR support, a lot of devices can be paired to the remote, such as air conditioners, robot vacuums, TV’s, fans and speakers. You can also directly control your SwitchBot devices, if you own these. Depending on the device you want to control, corresponding buttons become active. When you control your TV, it will allow you to use to + and – buttons to control the volume, while for other devices like an on/off switch only activates the on and off buttons.
Daily use
As I don’t have much IR devices in my home, I’ve mainly used the device for my Apple TV, Robot Vacuums and for control of some Matter devices I’ve added to Apple HomeKit. An older robot vacuum could be controlled by a remote, so I’ve added this one to the remote. Although I usually only use the on/off button, it was convenient to be able to control the robovac with the remote as it wasn’t compatible with Apple HomeKit. The Universal Remote is also able to control my Apple TV, which is something I use regularly. The controls works over bluetooth and you need to connect it once in the settings of your Apple TV. While it’s nice to have a second remote when I couldn’t find my Siri Remote, I do prefer to use original remote from Apple. With the SwitchBot Universal Remote, you need to first select which device you want to control, so it takes an extra step before your controls are available.
For SwitchBot devices, the universal remote is very convenient. You have one central place where everyone in your home can control the curtains, bot, robot vacuums and other devices. Especially for curtains and robot vacuums it can be nice to have an extra option to control those besides your smartphone. For robot vacuums, it’s currently only available as an on/off button. This means you’re not able to control the rooms to clean, suction power or tell the vacuum to also mop the floor. For the Universal Remote to really replace your smartphone is most cases, these options are definitely a must. However, it’s to be expected SwitchBot will increase the support for more functionality for their own devices in the future.
The Matter integration of the SwitchBot Universal Remote is appealing. When you own a SwitchBot Hub with Matter, you’re able to add the Universal Remote to Apple HomeKit. It appears as 4 single buttons, which you can set to control anything you’ve added to Apple HomeKit. This means you can control a lot of different devices. You can even set shortcuts within the Home app, allowing for more advanced control. In my case, I’ve added an if/else statement to turn my lights on when they’re off and the other way around. One button can control more devices at the same time, so you can also use it as a bedtime scene to turn of the lights, control the thermostat and close the curtains with a single button. The functionality is limited to 4 different actions/buttons, so depending on the number of devices you want to control, this might be a limitation. I can image this could be upgraded with a future update, but I haven’t seen anything indicating this is actually going to happen.
In my daily use, I sometimes used the remote for my Apple TV, e.g. when the Siri Remote was on the other side of the room. It was also convenient every now and then to start the robot vacuum or control the lights in the living room. I can imagine it’s very convenient if you have a lot of air conditioners you like to control with IR. In my case, I mainly used it when it was the closest option to control a device, like when I’m on the couch. For most of my devices I also have other smart buttons all over the house, which are more convenient when you walk in a room.
Conclusion
The SwitchBot Universal Remote is a fairly budget friendly option to control several smart devices in your home, including your Apple TV, Matter devices and IR devices. Especially when you’re on the couch and the remote is near, it’s nice to not need your smartphone or yell to Google to control your devices. With the Matter integration, you can control a lot of devices, but it’s currently limited to 4 buttons. It would be a significant upgrade if SwitchBot offers more Matter buttons and more control over the settings of robot vacuums. Given the number of updates in the last few months, there might be some interesting updates on the way. There aren’t that many universal remotes for your Smart Home, and if you already own several SwitchBot devices, it’s nice to have them all in one place without the need of grabbing your smartphone. If you own a lot of devices controlled by IR, this remote could be a significant improvement over all those separate remotes for every single device.
The SwitchBot Universal Remote is available on Amazon (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands) for $69.99/£59.99/€69.99 and on the official SwitchBot website in the US, UK and EU.
