Initial Impressions

have one remaining issue with my polk soundbar 6000 not powering off when I tell need to power off the input devices..  see my reply to your prior posts earlier

Here are my initial impressions, fix these issues and I think you will have a good product. If not fixed then your product will be inferior to Other remotes such as harmony.

1. Set up wasn't very easy. My common Samsung TV was not listed. It's is difficult to add a device that's not listed. Thankfully I picked a model number that was relatively close and it worked. The satellite box was also difficult. You had to enter DIRECTV perfectly in order to find the proper device. Direct TV does not pull up the proper device.

2. The manual sound bar turn on is ridiculous. My Harmony has never had a problem with turning on and controlling my sound bar. NEEO will turn it on but has difficulty controlling the volume.

3. The home page should list activities like,watch TV, play Xbox, instead of listing the devices. 

4. NEEO should have a clock on the upper band. 

5. The guide button for the TV is to hidden. There should be a guide button on the remote or it needs to be more easily accessible. 

6. Battery appears to drain quickly.

Ive had remote for 1 day and these are my first impressions. I'm sure I will have more as I get more familiar with it.

Shawn

The unboxing experience was nice, the materials and accesories used throughput, feel rather premium.

Well perhaps I'm not too fond of the top plastic of the brain unit. Since it allows you to "click,"  to pair the remote, it flexes and feels cheap. I may have liked to feel a small divot type button, with a solid click, like the apple iphone home button or similar.

Also like the larger phones of late, iPhone Plus, or other larger screen units, I wonder if the NEEO remote could have also been larger, say 10mm wider or so for more screen real estate?

However, after using a harmony remote, and their app for a number of years now, NEEO was a step backwards in usability. Their app to setup everything, is more user friendly and intuitive. Larger icons, clearer descriptions, more intutitive wizards IMO. (All subjective mind you).  Perhaps you have an iPad version of the app, where I can use that extra real estate and experience a better UI for setup? Nope, I can't find one.

The whole IF THEN aspect just doesn't appeal to me, and I'm no developer to care about an API.  I want easy to setup macro's/recipes/automation. The benchmark is if my mother can set it up, the product gets high marks. I could not give this to my mother. The Harmony on the other hand, she gets.

I'll put it through it's paces for another couple weeks and see if I'm swayed towards using NEEO, but I have a feeling I'm going to end up giving it away to a friend that moved into a new home and it'll be a house warming gift to him. 

The product just didn't excite me upon setup, and doesn't solve or fundamentally alter (for the better) the experience of the Harmony unit I have now.  Shame.  But good on the NEEO team for finally delivering something, and perhaps oneday it'll be able to take on the world, or be acquired and you'll each be millionaires.

Got mine delivered and setup last night.

Initial thoughts:

1. I hope you didn't spend too much money on the packaging. It was beautiful.

2. The brain was significantly lighter than I expected it to be. Like WAY lighter. I imagine it's because the aluminum is thin and the rest of it is basically a circuit board and some plastic. But it felt incongruously light given the fit and finish. I know it's weird that weight implies quality but it does. I'd honestly add some weight to the brain.

3. The controller feels great in your hand and has all the weight I'd expect.

4. I had a really hard time getting the initial setup process to start but once I did I thought it was fairly straightforward.

5. From a UI perspective I think it's mostly pretty good, both the app and the remote.

6. Unlike others I never wanted this to be my smart home hub so the missing smart home functionality isn't a big deal to me. I was looking for a nicer universal remote to replace my Harmony remote. My Harmony remote works but it has always felt clunky. It's slow (even turning up the volume can have odd delays). It occasionally freezes for no apparent reason. The layout of the buttons and screen is weird (I'm constantly hitting the screen when I didn't mean to). The screen interface is jerky and never fluid. I could go on and on. My initial observations are that the NEEO is going to fit those replacement needs perfectly.

7. Every component I had already had a controller map for it. NAD T747 amp, old LG TV, OPPO BDP-80, Apple TV 4th Gen, XBOX, PS4, etc...

8. You should really think about selling a black cat version to regular customers. It looks so good and personally I would have been sad if I hadn't gotten the Kickstarter one and were looking at purchasing one of these now.

So I like the remote. I'm very pleased despite some obvious software bugginess and first version issues that I honestly would expect from any new product especially one from a small new company like NEEO.

Now to start nitpicking:

1. Having only ONE icon to represent gaming systems is ridiculous. I'm going to be adding a Nintendo Switch pretty soon and will end up having the same icon 3 times on my remote screen. There needs to be more icons available and they should be customizable by the user. Harmony does a great job of this and it's something you can do with minimal effort. There should be a few different DVD/CD player icons. A few different AV Amp ones, a few gaming system ones that more closely match actually machines/controllers and maybe even an Apple icon for stuff like the Apple TV. I have non English speakers that live in my house and they navigate my Harmony remote visually. They want to start something they know what it is by the icon. I doubt they will have slightest idea which button to press to get the Apple TV launched with the current icons available.

2. I have a piece of crap ancient buggy as hell LG TV that occasionally refuses to listen to IR commands. It's own remote pointed directly at the TV fails to turn the TV on about 30% of the time. Other times it locks up for no apparent reason and I have to unplug it just to turn it off. I know, I need a new TV, that's going to happen, but in the mean time the NEEO desperately needs a Help button like the Harmony has that attempts to retry the launch commands you just ran. Yes, I can, add some shortcuts and probably get something where I can manually do it but that's a lot of manual futzing and I can't imagine I'm the only person with a finicky device that sometimes fails to respond to IR commands.

3. Why am I stuck with the admittedly attractive background on the remote screens?

4. Why when I only have one room with stuff in it do I still have to click into that one room before I can do anything on the physical remote?

5. What is "NEEO Link" and what does the switch do in the NEEO REMOTE settings panel in the phone app?

I imagine a lot of these nitpicks are going to be solved over time. But they're things that stood out to me and that I know are going to bug me until they're solved.

Black Cat Combo arrived today.  Deja Vu pledge, backer # roughly 3,500.  After following these discussions closely was curious how set up would actually work.  Color me impressed, and I have been a Harmony owner for about 15 years.  Firstly, the build quality of the combo is second to none.  Brain updated and connect to wifi without any hiccups.  I have a NETGEAR router 2.4/5 G and heard there could be some issues.  I had none.  Found my Panasonic Plasma, Marantz Receiver, Panasonic Blu-ray and Sony DVD all in database.  Recipes/cable salad all worked like a charm.  Remote paired immediately to brain after initial set up.  Have the brain about twelve feet away from equipment, on top of a ledge near the ceiling and IR works without a flaw.  There are a couple of issues with UI which have been pointed out by others on the planet, which I will briefly describe.  When changing recipes, unused sources should definitely be turned off automatically.  I have done an easy work around, but did not think that should be necessary.  For example, when switching from Blu-ray to DirecTV the Blu-ray player should shut off.  I fixed this by adding an off command to the end of my DirecTV recipe which solved the problem.  It is nice to have channel icons for favorites in DirecTV recipe.  It is not nice that this is the default screen when starting recipe.  I think most people jump straight to the guide or playlist when watching tv, so default screen should be the page that is currently after favorites, the one with colored buttons, play, pause, etc.  Don't think I can currently change order of pages, but would think this would be fixed in an upcoming software date.  My biggest issue is that in my Blu-ray recipe, the default page that has the transport controls (play, pause, etc) doe not have button to open/close tray.  I did another work around by adding that to the end of the recipe so it opens it all the time, however my player has other network features so it really does not need to open every time.  The last thing I have not yet spent enough time with, but may need some maintenance, is that surround mode, setup and info of my aAVR cannot be added as shortcuts to recipes.  Either the options or missing, or the couple that I found don't do anything. I will start new threads to see if these issues can be corrected.  Think they should be easy fixes.  It's been a long ride but am very impressed with software at 0.4 whatever version.  By the time this reaches 1.0 options seem limitless.  Thanks to the team for all the hours of hard work over the last few years.

 1, it should have a wifi enabled setup. Don't require it to plug in to a hard connection. I don't want to plug it in and get it going only to have to move it and plug it in again. Annoying.  Even my $40 Wemo switch can do this. It's just a function of using the right Ti wifi chipset.   2, the brain plastic top scratches super easy. I pulled the plastic off and then wiped it off with my t-shirt, bang, tons of fine scratches in the plastic. I can see this getting much worse over time and having to dust it off. 3, and last would be some quick setup guide. Many things aren't that self explanatory and can create some frustration to people who want to get up in running in minutes vs hours. It took me many attempts to get recipes working right so that my volume controls worked for my sound bar instead of using the TV volume. 

Dear NEEO

First of all, I'd like to thank you very much for hosting a small Swiss Kickstarter launch event last saturday. I was pleased to get the chance to talk to a couple of you guys. Unfortunately, except for shaking hands, I didn't really get the chance to talk to Raphael.

Second, I'd like to share my initial impressions of the NEEO Smart Remote.

Unboxing
Like many others mentioned before, unboxing is just awesome. Kudos to NEEO, this is top notch!
Only one negative point here: My black cat kinda had some fingerprint stains on it, which I find a bit frustrating for a device at this prize range with such an amazing packaging.

Hardware

Brain:
Nice, simple design, excellent built quality. Should fit nicely in everyones home cinema setup. 
I hope NEEO let users control the indication LED of the brain at some point, it's quite bright and a dimming function would be highly appreciated. I wish the power cable would be USB on both sides, from a user perspectiv I don't understand why the brain doesn't come with a USB charging port. 
IR-capabilities are insane, I placed my brain on top of my TV cabinet, directly underneath my TV. All my other AV components are stored underneath in the cabinet, with no direct line of sight between the devices, but it just works. Not a single hick-up! Really impressive!

Dockingstation:
Rock solid, couldn't imagine such a small piece of hardware can weigh so much. 
Same here with the power cable, too bad the dockingstation doesn't feature a USB charging port.

Remote:
Again, really well built quality. Feels really good in the hand, exact right size, and right wheight. Gotta say I was a bit disappointed by the resolution of the display. I guess that's because I forgot that "retina" had a bit of a different meaning 2.5 years ago. Back cover isn't completely aligned with the aluminum case all the way around, but that's complaining on a very high level.

Setup
Setting up the brain and the remote is a no brainer, you just plug everthing together, install the NEEO app and follow the instructions.

Too bad you can't use your login from Planet NEEO to log in on the remote, I didn't like creating yet another account for kind of the same service. It would be great to use only one account - the NEEO account.

(Suggestion for the app: Maybe the "Next" button in the top-right corner could get a bit bigger? Couldn't really see it the first time as I'd expected it to be in the bottom-right corner. Sorry, I'm an Android fan boy)

Software
Now we're getting to the not so great part of my initial impressions. In short, I think the software is far away from prime time. I'll try to explain why I think so.

• Adding a device is pretty straight forward, unless NEEO lists more than one result and you have to choose one - cleaning up the double entries should fix that.
• Some devices will create some kind of "automatic" recipe, after only a couple of hours testing, I couldn't really figure out why and what devices trigger such a recipe. Some recipes/devices also trigger a "cable salad" message. I was having a really hard time understanding what device/recipe triggers what kind of reaction. This entire behaviour and handling of devices and recipes is not user friendly at all. I'm sure there is a logic behind each behaviour, but as someone that just started using the NEEO, you shouldn't need to try so hard to find out why it behaves that way. Setting up devices and recipes should be intuitive and each step should be comprehensible by the user, which is not the case right now.
• Managing recipes is even more complicated, there different kind of recipes. Automatic creates recipes for "Actions", automatic created "recipes for "Devices" and user added recipes for "Action". Automatic recipes behave different from user created recipes. Why? Why do they behave different?
  • Why do automatic recipes have a "when ... is launched" and "when ... is off" option and user created recipes don't? 
  • Why can I not rename a automatic recipe directly like the user created ones? 
  • Why do automatic recipes have steps that I can't add to my own recipes, such as "Use AV Receiver to control Volume"
  • Why can I not change the icon from a user created recipe?
• And there is even more unclear stuff to recipes that I don't really understand:
  • What are hidden recipes good for? And why do they even exist? 
  • How do I create another automatic recipe? There is no control over what kind of recipe the user can create. Looks like automatic recipes are connected to adding a new device. Why not let the user add automatic recipes like Harmony does? It can't be that you have to add a device several times to create several recipes that include the same devices but to create different scenarios. This is not user friendly at all.
• Managing recipes is probably the worst thing about NEEO at this very moment, but I'm glad this is something that can be fixed with a software update.

Stupid devices
What can I say... I simply don't like the way NEEO handles these so called stupid devices at all. Having this weird screen in front of me each time a want to control a recipe with a stupid device included, makes me feel that the remote is not working properly. It forces me to do additional steps to get where I want to, and that's the opposite of what I except from a device like the NEEO. 

Same with powering off a recipe, I don't want to press an additional button to switch off the stupid device and then press another button called "Leave Recipe" to perform what one click actually should have done in the first place. (And you might wanna rethink the wording "Leave Recipe", didn't really know what would happen if I press it.)

Hue Integration

• Adding lights is a pain in the a**! You have to add every single light source individually from the list, and you'll have to remember which one you already added. Since I have 20+ Hue bulbs I wasn't really thrilled adding them one by one. 
• No support of Hue scenes
• No support of color changing
• No support to group lights and dimm them together
• So the only thing you can do is to dimm each light individually.
• Really disappointing so far.

Spotify Integration
Unless you have a Sonos system at home, Spotify integration is completely useless at the moment. As of now, it's confusing that you're able to connect your Spotify account within the app, but no hint that only Sonos users can use it at the moment. I had to look it up on Planet NEEO.

Conclusion (as for now)
After a few hours of testing the remote, I figured, that the NEEO is not ready to replace my Harmony just yet. I decided to put it aside and share my first impressions here on Planet NEEO.

Long story short: Hardware top, Software is a mess and needs a loooot of improvement!

I am glad that all the issues I have with my NEEO are software related, which means it can be fixed or at least improved. I'm glad NEEO put so much effort into the hardware, so they have an awesome foundation they can build on now.

I'm confident that NEEO knows what task are still ahead of them and what needs to be done so NEEO will become what we were all waiting for - a smart remote to rule them all!

During my vacation i receive the massage that my NEEO was to be deliverd. Nice timing after waiting for over 2 years :-). Luckaly i could change the shipping adres online right on the spot so the delivery man would not find an empty house. After returning from my vacation i picked up the pakkage (thanks mom) and went on setting it up right away. I must say that the NEEO box is very impressive! The look and feel are realy premium and i am amazed by the love and care that has gone in to designing the pakkaging. The remote itself also feels realy premium and sturdy but the brain was surprisingly light. I would not have mind of there was more weight to it. But then again, the brain only sits under the TV anyway. Setup was very easy and i got everything running quite fast. And where i had some trouble including my KPN tv tuner, the discussion rooms helpt out because the issues were already adressed for someone else. Using the NEEO is so simple that it was a kind of anti climax, in a good way. Switching between my tv tuner and the apple tv was never easier (before NEEO i needed 3 remotes for this). Also the hue lights in my living room worked right away. Although i stil have to figure out how the controle scenes and stuf, because now i can only switch the lighting on/off and controll the brightness. I yet have to include the NEEO in my zwave network. That is something for a rainy day in the nearby future.

You can read my initial impressions here https://planet.neeo.com/t/36kw6p/ill-take-a-break-from-neeo-for-now

Quick summary:  NEEO did directly become my preferred home automation solution/remote.  It meets my basic requirements and I see and love its potential.  But for the time being, I am keeping my Harmony Hub on the side to close the gaps that NEEO does not (yet) cover.

Hardware: I pretty much echo everyone’s sentiment - premium quality, premium feel, brilliant unboxing experience

Initial setup

The first steps including adding devices was simple, quick and intuitive.  But when I got to recipes, I got a bit stuck.  I needed Planet NEEO to understand and figure out how to use the recipes.  It took me a while to understand the difference between the automatic devices and custom ones.  I started out building my own recipes at first, not realizing their limitations and that I actually would be using the automatic ones as the basis.  Once I figured that out, I could pretty much cover my basic requirements through NEEO.

Day-to-day usage

NEEO covers my basic requirements quite well - controlling my Smart TV, AVR, Sonos, a limited amount of HUE bulbs and my Set-up box (unfortunately a ‘stupid device’).   It took me a while to get the automatic recipes customized (which I enjoyed doing btw), incl adding some workaround to be able to control devices directly.  I am really liking the Alexa integration (which isn’t available to me for Logitech yet in the Netherlands)

Every now and then I switch to my Logitech Hub app for basic controls over my AVR, TV or Set-up Box.   Being able to do something similar via NEEO is a key improvement area.  I look forward to be able to get rid of my Logitech hub. 

I also quite regularly use the native apps for Sonos, Hue, etc.  But I am not sure I’d ever expected NEEO to fully replace those.  Sure there are some integration improvements, but as long as NEEO does the basic well, quickly and smoothly, it already does more and better than many other solutions out there.

Improvement areas

Many great suggestions here and in other topics already.  I am keen to see more advanced features (better ways customize recipes, screens and stupid devices), better integration (e.g. HUE) and more devices (Nest, WeMo switches, etc) but as long as I see progress and pace, I am patient.  

Overall, NEEO meets my requirements and exceeds them in many areas.  I too had expected the software to be a bit more mature, but in my case, it does the basics well enough to make me a happy user who switched straight away.   I can’t wait to see the software improve and mature over the coming months though, so that I do not need the Harmony Hub any more for basic control over my AVR, set-up box and TV.

Jasper Odijk said:
Many great suggestions here and in other topics already.  I am keen to see more advanced features (better ways customize recipes, screens and stupid devices), better integration (e.g. HUE) and more devices (Nest, WeMo switches, etc) but as long as I see progress and pace, I am patient.  

 Make sure to vote for existing ideas or add your own ideas.

Jeremy Porter said:
Existing set up involves TV mounted to wall with an IR extender at the bottom of the TV that then relays IR commands to the rest of the AV equipment on the other side of the wall.

Jeremy Porter Did you find a solution regarding where to place your NEEO Brain and/or the IR extender? I have a similar setup, where all my source devices are connected to a matrix in a rack housed in one room, and this all connects to TVs in different rooms in the house. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I had some spare time last night so decided to setup my Neeo.  I have to admit I was a bit wary based on some negative feedback I have read and the problems that some users were having.

I have decided to go into this with tentative baby steps. I have a list of things I eventually want to achieve with the setup, but for now its one device/task at a time.  Last night's mission was to install and control the TV (without my amp or settop box).  I managed to do this and could add in most channels I wanted, and do some basic controlling.  

This brought a smile to my face (and sigh of relief). Especially as my girlfriend was also dubious as to how well it would work and the amount of money paid.

So first impressions:

The Good
* I managed to get the TV working. Success!

The Bad
* A quick start guide would have been useful. I had to cobble together pieces of information from this forum.
* Trying to update the remote I got an "Application Error" the first 5 times I tried to update. On the last attempt it actually started working.  It was not giving me much confidence at the time though.

The Ugly
* The power plug adaptors we were sent in Australia. They feel and look cheap and nasty. And as someone pointed out, you can't put them next to each other as they take up too much room on the power outlet.
 

What next?

Play around with the recipes and shortcuts. And add in another device.