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Detailed feedback on the skip1s app


norrishh

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Having finally made my remote connect via a USB-C to USB-A adapter, I have a bunch of feedback on the app in both UI and functionality.  

I'm coming from Harmony which also has an _excruciatingly_ bad UI so I'm used to that, although the skip UI managed to be just as bad in completely different ways. It's the missing functionality that renders it unusable for me.

My feedback comes in no particular order, stream of consciousness as I messed around with it this afternoon.

1) I don't keep my PC in the living room. This needs to be a mobile phone app very badly. So frustrating. So I tried to setup my bedroom TV, which has many, many less devices, just the native fireTV (TV has fireTV built-in) and a shieldTV. Still didn't work due to reasons below.  
2) App is slow, animations are glacial.  
3) Getting to button remapping is extraordinarily counterintuitive. You need to go to activities and then click the little right arrow to get there.  
4) The "tips" panel on the right appears to have movies from a completely different piece of software. There is no "filter view" etc. C'mon.  
5) As mentioned in many other posts, since it doesn't have my devices listed I need to basically check all of them. Since my PC isn't in the living room this is an extremely frustrating experience.  
6) Commands are missing. I can't find any way to "home" on the toshiba fireTV in my bedroom. None of the many, many commands labeled "menu", menu main, menu quick, men top, etc, do it. The only way for me to go to the internal fireTV input is to use the "input scroll" command (discovered via laborious trial and error trying EVERY SINGLE INPUT.) I did of course have to try EVERY single toshiba TV listed as well.
7) Erasing a command is annoying. You need to precisely click on the little trashcan and then hold the button there for a second. Very poor UI, I find myself failed to delete over half the time. There should be a drag handle to reorder, so a single click works to delete.  
8) Since there's no way to give a CEC menu or home command there's no way to go home on the ShieldTV either (as it does not have built-in IR) unless you use a Flirc USB. That isn't necessarily the skip1s's fault, but it is a major obstacle to switching (in that I would not switch).  
9) Even though many models of the ShieldTV don't have IR, the app lets you pick it anyway. This led to a lot of head-scratching for me until I realized what was up.

Not to be completely negative, in the pros column, syncing is really quick, easy, and works flawlessly. Unfortunately that's the only positive feedback from me.

I could go on if I were still trying to use the remote, but at this point I'm giving up until a lot of development goes into the software. This device is not usable for my purposes. I hope the app and the overall experience improves. Until that day comes, it will be sitting in a drawer.

Edited by norrishh
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Posted  · IP  (edited

I agree with most of your feedback, reply inline:

 

1) I don't keep my PC in the living room. This needs to be a mobile phone app very badly. So frustrating. So I tried to setup my bedroom TV, which has many, many less devices, just the native fireTV (TV has fireTV built-in) and a shieldTV. Still didn't work due to reasons below.  

- I don't have a solution for this, it'll come when it comes. That's why we chose react native desktop, so we have an easy path forward. But quite frankly, supporting android is going to be as bad as our windows development has been

2) App is slow, animations are glacial.  

- Windows performance is horrible, mac is like butter. You'd think microsoft would put more love into their own OS, but we have an entire branch for windows performance fixes and it's much better. It's coming after we fix windows USB bullshit.

 
3) Getting to button remapping is extraordinarily counterintuitive. You need to go to activities and then click the little right arrow to get there.  

- We'll open this after the activity is created, or make it so the app forces you too like the wizard, would that help?


4) The "tips" panel on the right appears to have movies from a completely different piece of software. There is no "filter view" etc. C'mon.  

- There are some small things that are not public, but it's not all that bad. Most is relevant.


5) As mentioned in many other posts, since it doesn't have my devices listed I need to basically check all of them. Since my PC isn't in the living room this is an extremely frustrating experience.  


6) Commands are missing. I can't find any way to "home" on the toshiba fireTV in my bedroom. None of the many, many commands labeled "menu", menu main, menu quick, men top, etc, do it. The only way for me to go to the internal fireTV input is to use the "input scroll" command (discovered via laborious trial and error trying EVERY SINGLE INPUT.) I did of course have to try EVERY single toshiba TV listed as well.

- What device did you end up picking that is working? Do you have the original remote? Is it IR or bluetooth?


7) Erasing a command is annoying. You need to precisely click on the little trashcan and then hold the button there for a second. Very poor UI, I find myself failed to delete over half the time. There should be a drag handle to reorder, so a single click works to delete.  

- Yes, believe me, I know. We have this fixed in nightly. Dragging and the duplication bug is fixed too. All this got held up because of windows. After shipping a bunch of units, the app wont connect. Apparently windows wants everyone to use UWP apps, but allows other apps outside of UWP to change the permission of our own USB devices so we can't connect, but provide no way to easily change this back. 


8) Since there's no way to give a CEC menu or home command there's no way to go home on the ShieldTV either (as it does not have built-in IR) unless you use a Flirc USB. That isn't necessarily the skip1s's fault, but it is a major obstacle to switching (in that I would not switch).  

- Why do you need CEC if the firetv is built into the TV? I'm not following, however, I think that if it's a toshiba tv, there must be a code to support this that we have to discover.


9) Even though many models of the ShieldTV don't have IR, the app lets you pick it anyway. This led to a lot of head-scratching for me until I realized what was up.

- Some shields have IR. We will list the models so it's not confusing. Would that help? Does yours have IR?

Not to be completely negative, in the pros column, syncing is really quick, easy, and works flawlessly. Unfortunately that's the only positive feedback from me.

I could go on if I were still trying to use the remote, but at this point I'm giving up until a lot of development goes into the software. This device is not usable for my purposes. I hope the app and the overall experience improves. Until that day comes, it will be sitting in a drawer.

- I have to respectfully disagree with your conclusion. While the software needs a lot of work, it's objective is to get your remote setup, and you should never have to mess with it again for 2 years until your setup changes. The hardware is solid. If the software is not permitting you to even get set-up, than I need to help you get past that.  Please let me know what I can do.

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Re button remapping, either solution would help, so long as how to get there is illustrated.

I didn't find any device that had any way to go back to the fireTV home (or shieldTV home). That's when I gave up. I'm sure it has IR learning capabilities and I do have the original remote but my Harmony still works fine and the whole thing was becoming a big hassle just to basically clone my TV's remote and use it for HDMI CEC, with literally zero commands to the shieldTV STB plugged into the fireTV TV. There was simply no value in doing it over picking up the TV remote.

Finally yes listing specific shield models with IR support would help. My shieldTVs don't have it, which is why I've been using bluetooth from Harmony hubs.

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Yep, using BT. I have two Flirc USBs lying around (the really early transparent ones) so I could use them, but my current solution works, and the shieldTV in my living room is inside a cabinet, etc, etc.

It's pretty clear that universal remotes are a rapidly shrinking market. That's why Logitech threw away the whole Harmony product line, because it didn't bring in sufficient revenue to continue. Obviously Flirc is a far smaller company and I expect you'd be rather pleased to sell Harmony's old volume, but the base reasoning applies. Most people just use HDMI CEC these days, and anyone who isn't satisfied with HDMI CEC in 2023 is likely going to have esoteric needs and strong opinions. For example, I haven't even brought up the HDMI switch in my living room, or how I have my harmony programmed to turn off my air conditioner, or linked to Google Assistant to turn on my TV, etc.

To be successful, aftermarket universal remotes need to offer really strong arguments over simply using whatever remote came with the user's TV/AppleTV/ShieldTV/FireTV or whatever with HDMI CEC. That wasn't the case for me, and even if all software issues were addressed and I had a functional home button, the hardware being IR-only means it would still control my devices via HDMI CEC. Even if I did use a Flirc USB, the IR signal wouldn't reach inside my cabinet, I'd need to move my shieldTV and probably Xbox Series X, PS5, and HTPC on top of the furniture. (IR does reach the HDMI switch, that's how I control it today.)

Edited by norrishh
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