Once upon a time cable came into your house. All you had to do was plug a coaxial cable into your television. Depending on the limits of your television’s own tuner, you probably had channels 2-13 for cable. Times have obviously changed, and Bruce Springsteen’s “57 Channels and Nothing On” is off by at least an order of magnitude. Modern times and cheap televisions have lead to situations where you may not need or be able to afford a cable box on every television. Due to this, the old method of a simple coaxial (or HDMI) cable to another room is having a bit of a renaissance. Some tuner boxes make this easy with radio frequency remotes, but most don’t. There are many IR Blaster technologies available for changing the channel from a different room, but only one or two for the iOS. The Peel is one of those iOS IR Blaster technologies. This hardware and software combination reaches quite far with it’s feature set. Is it too ambitious, or just right?
The Peel is a three-component system based on IR Blaster technology. The trio of parts are the Peel fruit which does the blasting, the cable which plugs into your network and broadcasts to the fruit, and the iOS app that controls the pair. Setup is pretty simple. Point the fruit at the devices you wish controlled and plug in the cable into your router. The documentation does address that this needs to be plugged into the router. Thinking outside the normal setup, in the interest of testing, I tried plugging it in elsewhere in my wired network. The Peel cable doesn’t work properly if plugged in elsewhere. After the rudimentary device installation is complete, the iOS application will take you the rest of the way.
Application configuration is by far the most complicated, but not that difficult by any stretch. Initially the devices you wish to control with your Peel are configured. Lost the unique remote codes? No problem. The Peel application will look them up for you by make and model, and even go through a basic functionality testing- on/off, volume control, et cetera. The Peel controls much more than a television and a tuner box. You can configure just about any other IR remote based device, like many receivers, even an AppleTV or Roku box. Following hardware configuration the app uses location services to pinpoint which television guide it should download for you based on your selection of cable provider.
Show selection on the Peel application
The promise of the device is mostly met- one iDevice as a universal remote without any dongles attachéd to the phone itself. There are a few flaws that hold the device back just a bit. While I found the interface usable, my iDevice proficient inlaws found the non-standard interface conventions a bit obtuse for regular use. They limited themselves to favorite channel switching and didn’t really use the guide functionality that often. The app is just for the iPhone and is designed as such. When enlarged for the iPad, the sensitivity of some of the manual controls seems lessened somewhat. When left at original size, everything seems fine. Not having an iPad specific version of the application seems like an opportunity lost. I did speak with Peel PR regarding an iPad version of the app, and they reported that “(the) iPad is definitely on the roadmap, but there are a few things ahead of it.” With any luck, the larger real estate will be fully taken advantage of.
"Joystick" for manual control
The biggest issue I had with the Peel is the Peel Cable. Communications between the Peel Fruit and the Peel Cable use a custom wireless solution. Getting the 802.11 signal to the cable isn’t a problem, but the distance from your router to the Peel Fruit might create one. I had no problem in a fairly standard split-level house from the basement to the kitchen, but communications between the cable and fruit were inconsistent a bit farther away in an extension to the house. This may have been distance or a brick wall, I’m not sure. If the cable functioned properly plugged into a network switch closer to the Fruit, then range or RF shielding effects wouldn’t have been a problem. As noted earlier though, it doesn’t work at all plugged in anyplace else but the router.
Our review primarily focused on controlling a cable box in an adjacent room from the viewing space. We did test it as a universal remote with a surround sound system and a DVD player with no problems. If all you’re looking for is simple cable box control, then there are easier alternatives available. Many cable providers have options for your smartphone, especially if you have bundled services and compatible routers. Cable provider’s smartphone solutions limit your home networking options, forcing you to use their routers. The Peel does exactly as advertised- it simplifies your remote situation as well as makes television a more customized experience. With it you get a more interactive TV guide on the remote, rather than what the cable provider force feeds you with your cable box. There are positively problems that call out for this elegant and attractive solution. Overall, we liked the Peel, and see where in the future further software updates would benefit the advanced and casual user alike. There are other universal remote control solution available, but the more flexible ones cost more than $99 (not including the cost of the iDevice, of course). I’m not sure technically why the Peel cable needs to be plugged into the router only and I’d like to see this resolved in the future, but I do recommend the Peel for just about every universal remote control application from both a functionality and stylistic standpoint.
Item provided by developer for review.
