Universal Remote – Roomie

I have multiple ratings for this app. Functionality=5. V6 Roomie Remote is much easier to setup than Simple Control. If you are slightly ‘techie’ you’ll find it easy to setup. We have three rooms and less than 24 devices. It works very well. Our annual pricing is $50, I think that’s reasonable. Support=2/3. The developer makes it clear on their site, and in the app, that reports are only for bugs. Support on those – well – laborious communications – frustrating. I might have given it a 3 – but, they don’t offer any support if you encounter an issue that is not a bug. Their answer – go find an installer! WTH – I called a friend who is an installer – he said he heard of it – doesn’t support it – good luck. The whole idea, or it’s implied, behind the app is so a user can do it themselves. For a subscription fee I think you should get support. NEVER again will I upgrade to their next major revision – without time passing for them to correct bugs. V6 converted my v5 configuration – and it didn’t do well – many duplicate rooms (total of ~30) and worse yet – I could not update any of the activities that were in the original rooms. Based on bug emails – may have been a bug in 6.03 – corrected in 6.04. They kept recommending I could use a “known good backup.” Well. I created new rooms – it’s working – letting it alone for now. All that said I still recommend this app – best app out there. Next best IMO – Harmony – expensive.

Roomie is by far the fastest to add devices, rooms, and configure complex systems. The ease of adding your av gear, lighting, garage doors, thermostats, etc and actually be able to depend on it working almost all the time is it’s biggest feature. Preconfigured device screens (and available customization) allow you to setup a new room or activity very quickly rather than apps that require you to design the ui and arrange buttons on the screen. I’m a programmer and I can do that work, but I get more out of my system using Roomie because I can do more faster. There will be the occasional technical issue with any solution but overall our uptime has been almost perfect. And the price is very reasonable. It is a diy solution so be prepared to dig in to get the most out of it but for functionality day to day it absolutely can not be beat.

Have been using this for 3 years under Simple Control. Worked great. Went to move to new roomie remote and after it moved my old config in, power off activity stopped working. Submitted a bug report and was told not a bug, go hire an installer. Wrote back it worked and then it didn’t and waited for reply. In mean time looked at simple control setup and found roomie remote was missing all power off function in the room setup. Re-did config and now fixed. Reply back came and told me power off was missing and basic trouble shooting would have found such a simple problem, don’t bother them and find an installer for such stupid problems. If you get it to work you will love it, if it doesn’t work, good luck on getting any help, it won’t come from the app creator.

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I was a happy user of Roomie Remote from 2012. Had purchased the unlimited license. ($$$). Spent the money on the hardware and loads of time passing the steep learning curve. Well they changed names to simple control and functionality stayed the same for a while. Then they stopped supporting the app all together. They developed a newer app marketed towards the home user. (called Roomie Remote again). This requires a whole new purchase. Since I had already invested a couple hundred dollars in hardware, stupid me bought the new app($$$) and began setting it up. -Application crashes periodically. -A whole new learning curve. -Horrible setup manual. (Vague) -No video tutorials. After spending hours setting up devices and activities and withstanding the crashes, I had a couple quick questions that should be easily answered by a knowledgeable representative. I emailed product support. What a joke. Incredibly rude and condescending. No support. Zero. I was told to read the setup manual again or hire an integrator. I definitely was not expecting that after spending this kind of money. Unless you have loads of time on your hands to perform trial and error type tasks within this software, stay far away. You will get absolutely no support from this company. Pitiful.

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Loved the original Roomie Remote - all the way up until the original one-time lifetime purchase was rendered useless when they quit supporting newer equipment basically forcing us to “upgrade” to their new improved Simple Control. But that was certainly no upgrade - it was/is horribly laggy and devoid of key features like the video scrubbing bar that made Roomie awesome - and don’t even get me started about the hub that was required to run multiple devices. Was excited when the new Roomie was released - the perfectly misleading promo picture shows a scrubbing bar like the old app had so immediately paid to “upgrade” once again (this time voluntarily and enthusiastically). Only to find out the supposedly new app is EXACTLY like Simple Control. Still laggy AF and absolutely no sign of a video scrubbing bar. By now am very of being slapped in the face by these people.