This universal remote control seeks to control your smart home without a hub.

Your universal remote can join the comeback tour if you have any of the following devices: Cantata’s Haptique RS90 and RS90X It really comes true and is as good as advertised. The connected remote is claimed to also act as a comprehensive smart home controller, but for now it’s just a hopeful Kickstarter. The serial remote control (remote?) has pledged over $300,00, and at the time of writing, less than $10,000 is needed to fully fund the project, with a current estimated delivery date of August 2024.

What makes this different from sparse competition is that there are no hubs. You don’t need a separate box connected to your TV or IR repeater to do this. It comes with a charging dock and features a relatively spacious 3.2-inch color touchscreen for an Android-based OS. The display sits above 24 essential physical buttons to navigate and control them all, including the button that initiates voice control. In addition to compatibility with more than 3,000 existing devices with infrared capabilities, including TVs, projectors, Blu-ray players, and A/V receivers, the stylish cellphone-shaped RS90 is equipped with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, allowing it to interface with the latest smart home devices and platforms. There are (and even PS5).

Cantata promises early support for devices from popular brands like Philips Hue and Sonos, smart home integrations with third-party and open source hubs and platforms like Samsung SmartThings, Homey, and Home Assistant, as well as direct control over web-based services. Like Spotify or Netflix. This is in addition to popular streaming devices like the Amazon Fire TV Stick, Nvidia Shield TV, Apple TV, and Roku, in addition to receivers like Yamaha and Denon.

“Now instead of a remote control, we have a bunch of apps,” he said. The Burgess Nilay Patel in an extensive interview. “The real question was, ‘Can we be the app selector?’ ‘Can we be the interface between all those apps and you?’ We’ve seen it. We all thought hard about it. We realized that app selection is the domain of players who are already performing well in the market. We need to be able to do something special for our customers.”

What is the truth! Now you can control the simplest functions of your soundbar, TV, streaming box, and Xbox Series X/S (mainly thanks to HDMI-CEC) with a single LG Magic Remote. You only need to keep track of a few remotes for the odd case when you need to do something more specific. But if you have dozens of other smart home devices, or a more complex A/V setup comprised of products from multiple brands, that equation changes, but so far, my smartphone fills the gap well enough.

Haptique RS90 aims to solve all this. The idea that it can properly serve as a one-stop smart home hub sounds too good to be true, considering it’s already a bit out of date (it lacks Matter support, for example), but at least someone’s Unbearable. Pledges are available now. €240 (about $258) for the new Kickstarter.However, the listing does indicate that retail will start at €360 (about $387) once early bird pre-orders run out.