Griffin Beacon Review
Introduction:
Always a never-ending struggle for the many couch potatoes out there in the world - try as they can, but for some odd reason, they somehow manage to end up losing the television remote at one point or another. Rather than spending some time channel surfing, they’re left to search out and sniff for their highly prized remotes in the cracks and innards of their couch. Well, the Griffin Beacon is aiming to cure those pains as it aims to be the all-in-one solution to your remote needs. Essentially turning your iPhone into a snazzy universal remote, it takes the hassle of juggling multiple remotes for various home theater related devices – and it only priced at less than $80. However, will it be enough to convince people to choose it over other universal remotes?
Design:
Looking at the Griffin Beacon, we’re initially perplexed by its intriguing design – especially when it appears to be nothing more than a polished stone placed on a pedestal. Still, its modern looks is by far one of its most alluring features since it causes many people to question what it is exactly. And seeing that it’s glossy all around, it also makes for a perfect centerpiece on a living or family room table where it needs to be placed in order to work with home theater peripherals.
With the top portion of the device, the part that looks like a stone, it tucks away the unit’s IR blaster that shoots information to corresponding devices. Since it’s curved too, it offers a wide 180-degree IR range coverage so that it’s able to communicate with devices placed in front of it.
The Griffin Beacon is powered by 4 AA batteries. Of course, this means that you’ll need to replace them all at some point in the future, which can be costly in the end. Luckily, the manufacturer says that it’s able to get up two months of juice with those batteries.
Always a never-ending struggle for the many couch potatoes out there in the world - try as they can, but for some odd reason, they somehow manage to end up losing the television remote at one point or another. Rather than spending some time channel surfing, they’re left to search out and sniff for their highly prized remotes in the cracks and innards of their couch. Well, the Griffin Beacon is aiming to cure those pains as it aims to be the all-in-one solution to your remote needs. Essentially turning your iPhone into a snazzy universal remote, it takes the hassle of juggling multiple remotes for various home theater related devices – and it only priced at less than $80. However, will it be enough to convince people to choose it over other universal remotes?
Looking at the Griffin Beacon, we’re initially perplexed by its intriguing design – especially when it appears to be nothing more than a polished stone placed on a pedestal. Still, its modern looks is by far one of its most alluring features since it causes many people to question what it is exactly. And seeing that it’s glossy all around, it also makes for a perfect centerpiece on a living or family room table where it needs to be placed in order to work with home theater peripherals.
With the top portion of the device, the part that looks like a stone, it tucks away the unit’s IR blaster that shoots information to corresponding devices. Since it’s curved too, it offers a wide 180-degree IR range coverage so that it’s able to communicate with devices placed in front of it.
The Griffin Beacon is powered by 4 AA batteries. Of course, this means that you’ll need to replace them all at some point in the future, which can be costly in the end. Luckily, the manufacturer says that it’s able to get up two months of juice with those batteries.
Functions:
Considering that the actual Griffin Beacon is one part of the equation, the other half is found with the free Dijit Personal Media Assistant app – and it’s found in the App Store. Once installed, we’re greeted with a simple systematic process in transforming our iPhone (or iPad/iPod Touch) into that useful universal remote. Running the app, there are 5 distinctive icons placed on the bottom edge of the interface that gives us access to the Guide, Devices, Activities, Rooms, and Settings.
There’s no arguing about it, but we can sometimes be overwhelmed by the myriad of buttons on our various remotes. Naturally, the other nice thing with the Dijit app is that we’re in constant control with the layout of our on-screen remotes. Furthermore, it’s nice seeing that it eliminates the need to manage multiple remotes since we’re given the ability to quickly switch remotes on the fly with the app. Space can be a luxury with the iPhone’s display, but thankfully you can add other remote buttons to the extended area with each respective virtual remote.
Using the Griffin Beacon with a Samsung television, we’re able to execute a variety of basic and advanced functions – and it works flawlessly. However, we did experience one nagging bug that basically sends a command twice to our cable/DVR box. For example, pressing the channel up key once makes it change the channel up by two spots. Obviously, it doesn’t happen on all brands, but one quick remedy is found by adjusting the IR repeat settings within the Dijit app. However, we still find the issue persisting, but we’re certain that future firmware updates will squash the problem.
After using the Griffin Beacon over the course of a week, we find its battery life at 70 percent capacity. At our current usage, it’s going to be tapped out completely just a bit over 23 days, which is well under the 2 months it’s rated.
Conclusion:
Without a doubt, we absolutely love that the Griffin Beacon is a useful convergence device that organizes our eclectic remotes into one – while giving us complete control of the complete home theater experience as well. Not only are we able to do basic things like turning on/off the TV, but the extensive Dijit app provides additional functionality that goes beyond most other things. For $79.99, it’s pretty reasonable seeing that it does more things than some other pricey universal remotes on the market.
Griffin Beacon Video Review:
Considering that the actual Griffin Beacon is one part of the equation, the other half is found with the free Dijit Personal Media Assistant app – and it’s found in the App Store. Once installed, we’re greeted with a simple systematic process in transforming our iPhone (or iPad/iPod Touch) into that useful universal remote. Running the app, there are 5 distinctive icons placed on the bottom edge of the interface that gives us access to the Guide, Devices, Activities, Rooms, and Settings.
Impressively, the Griffin Beacon goes beyond simply acting as a universal remote for all of our home theater products. In addition to them, the Dijit app provides us the convenience of being able to manage our favorite programming, looking through the channel guide, the ability to check out our Netflix Instant queue, and integrates Facebook social networking into the mix. Essentially, we adore the convergence that the Dijit app has to offer since it’s very engaging in tracking and managing all of our TV watching needs.
There’s no arguing about it, but we can sometimes be overwhelmed by the myriad of buttons on our various remotes. Naturally, the other nice thing with the Dijit app is that we’re in constant control with the layout of our on-screen remotes. Furthermore, it’s nice seeing that it eliminates the need to manage multiple remotes since we’re given the ability to quickly switch remotes on the fly with the app. Space can be a luxury with the iPhone’s display, but thankfully you can add other remote buttons to the extended area with each respective virtual remote.
Using the Griffin Beacon with a Samsung television, we’re able to execute a variety of basic and advanced functions – and it works flawlessly. However, we did experience one nagging bug that basically sends a command twice to our cable/DVR box. For example, pressing the channel up key once makes it change the channel up by two spots. Obviously, it doesn’t happen on all brands, but one quick remedy is found by adjusting the IR repeat settings within the Dijit app. However, we still find the issue persisting, but we’re certain that future firmware updates will squash the problem.
After using the Griffin Beacon over the course of a week, we find its battery life at 70 percent capacity. At our current usage, it’s going to be tapped out completely just a bit over 23 days, which is well under the 2 months it’s rated.
Conclusion:
Without a doubt, we absolutely love that the Griffin Beacon is a useful convergence device that organizes our eclectic remotes into one – while giving us complete control of the complete home theater experience as well. Not only are we able to do basic things like turning on/off the TV, but the extensive Dijit app provides additional functionality that goes beyond most other things. For $79.99, it’s pretty reasonable seeing that it does more things than some other pricey universal remotes on the market.
Griffin Beacon Video Review:
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