The Ava Remote is a great example of what a smart home controller should look like

Last week I traveled to the world of professionally-installed smart homes. This is the promised land. Everything just works, your voice assistant doesn’t try to sell you toilet paper, and you can control your whole home with just one app. You will have to pay a steep price and give up a lot of control in exchange.

I was at CEDIA Expo 2022, the annual trade show of the Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association (think CES, but less weird stuff and more stuff you — or someone with more money than you — can actually buy). 

Here’s the perfect smart-home controller I was able to hold: a sleek touchscreen with a minimal bezel, wrapped in an anodized aluminum frame and a nice pad to rest my thumbs on. The Ava RemoteCould be the iPhone’s love child with a smartphone Logitech Harmony remote.

I say “almost perfect,” because the Ava Remote costs $1,300, is only available through custom integrators, and doesn’t make a good AV remote because it has no physical buttons. And that’s a real shame, because those three things aside, it looks like they’ve absolutely nailed it.

The Ava remote control was the first Google Certified. This means that it can run the Google Play store and that you can directly download any app to it. But unlike a phone, it’s not a personal device — so that embarrassing text message won’t pop up when you hand it to your mother-in-law.

It’s like a more advanced version of the Remote Control4 NeeoIt was Raphael Oberholzer was the designer.). However, the Neeo is only compatible with Control4. The Ava works with any ecosystem that is compatible in the Google Play store. (It’s not currently compatible with Control4).

It’s a genius idea because, while there’s lots of talk about the ambient smart home and the home that knows what you need and does it for you seamlessly, we are not there yet. The inescapable fact is today’s smart home has been designed to be run from your phone. The manufacturer’s app is often the best interface to control your lights, locks, or music, but no one wantsTo control their home from their smartphone

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been sitting on the couch, pulled out my phone to turn off the lights because I didn’t want to use voice or get up and push a button, only to be distracted by notifications and emerge 10 minutes later having totally forgotten what I was doing. Most people would like to leave their phones alone when they’re at home, and that’s almost impossible to do in a smart home. 

As I’ve written before, Smart homes require simple, universal control devicesIt should be accessible to everyone in the household. These must be accessible, easily charged and available for everyone, including family members and visitors. 

Voice is not always the solution; there are plenty of times you don’t want to have to call out to a speaker to control your lights (not to mention plenty of times when it gets it wrong). Current smart displays lack decent user interfaces for smart home control because they’ve been designed to be controlled by voice.

Controllers in wall such as this The touchscreen Brilliant Control PanelAnd Orro smart switches go part way to solving the problem, but there’s still a need for a remote control that sits on the coffee table, nightstand, or kitchen counter and is just there for home or music control. 

Shoehorning a device like an old smartphone or tablet into the role of a smart home remote doesn’t work well as they’re designed as personal devices. Plus, they don’t last more than a day without needing to be plugged in (or migrating into someone’s bedroom as a personal device).

The Ava addresses most of these issues. Made by A Swiss-American manufacturer focusing on audio streaming and home control, the device’s 2,200mAh battery should last up to six days on one charge. It comes with a USB-C-powered magnetic charging base that is easy to use. You can lock it to one app if you only want it to control your Philips Hue or Google Home lights. (It works with the Google Play store, so it’s not going to be an Apple Home controller, but it does work for Apple Music.) 

The device also features a microphone and speaker that can be used to voice control your voice assistant or as an intercom between rooms. There’s no lock screen to mess with; you just pick it up to wake it up. The quad-core, 2-GHz processor inside the device can handle multiple apps quickly, which is something your old tablet or smartphone might not be capable of.

The one thing the Ava doesn’t have is physical buttons, which limits its use as a remote for complex AV setups. Logitech Harmony has been discontinued (Logitech dropped it last year), there really isn’t a universal AV remote that also can control your smart home. Savant, Control4 & Crestron are luxury smart home manufacturers that offer remotes with tactile buttons to control your home and AV system. A few were on display, and they looked a lot like Harmony.

To be fair, CEO and co-founder Raphael Oberholzer tells me it’s really not designed for controlling your TV system. It’s a dedicated smart home remote. But if you have your AV system set up with Crestron or Savant — which many Ava customers will, since it’s only available through custom installers — you can at least control your AV system with their respective Android apps. But without physical buttons, it’s just not the same.

There are some AV/Smart home solutions for the DIY smart home if you are all-in on one ecosystem — the Apple TV and its slippery remote does an okay job, as long as your TV is always on and you trust Siri to get all your voice commands correct. (Why Apple doesn’t have a native Home app on the Apple TV is still a mystery). Amazon’s new Alexa Voice Remote ProA Fire TV Cube is paired with basic smart home functionality. It has two dedicated buttons that trigger Alexa Routes. But neither Apple nor Amazon (and definitely not Google) has nailed the “controlling my smart home on my TV” experience. 

As I’ve said, the smart home has been designed to be controlled from a smartphone, and as such — while you can often control devices from different manufacturers through one app — in many cases, the device’s dedicated app offers better controls and a more intuitive interface.

This is why Ava’s simple solution feels like it could really work. You can put everything you need to control your home on the vanilla remote.

The Ava isn’t the simple solution for everyone — not at that price — but it’s a sign of what could be. The Ava is a handheld touchscreen smart home controller that can be used by everyone in my home. It’s as powerful and easy to use as a phone, but it is certainly portable. NotMy smartphone. It must have a long-lasting battery and a cost that is under $200 so I can have one for each room in the house. I also want it to control my TV and sound system, as well as my smart home. It should look great in its charging station in my living room. Is it too much?

Correction: Monday October 3rd, 6:30 pmAn earlier version of this article stated that the Ava Remote worked with Control4. It is not possible to access Control4 apps via the AVA Remote.