What do you think are the biggest opportunities and issues for the Control4s and Crestrons of the world when it comes to the future of hand held remote controls?

Put otherwise, if you were product manager of hand held remote controls at Control4, Crestron, Savant, et al, what would be on your product roadmap to ensure your product was competitive* as heck in a year or two or three from now?

*competitive with regard to other high end automation players as well as OEM and consumer programmable remotes.

The issue is we're at a fork in the road.
Traditional Set-top vs Cord Cutters.
Each has different needs.
Numbers, not so much unless the streamers allow for it.

Even the cable companies are preparing, and without sharing of their roadmap it's impossible to know what the future holds. But my money is we're close to the end of set top boxes. Dish likely being the last man standing.

As to voice, will they open their API, or won't they?
Will we get left behind, should the mic be in the remote or in the room?
From a home system point of view, my vote is the room, not the remote.

Voice control like Xfinity. That's all we need added to current offerings.

Fewer handhelds needed in general as Comcast can do simple one room setups. While a smart remote was previously needed to switch TV inputs, control Roku and Blu-ray, now not so much...

If an AVR or smart home is in the mix, we will see...

I see things very similarly.

As for the mic being in the room vs the remote, it seems that all areas of the house will need mics - not just areas that have remotes. That bodes well for putting them in the room, at least in the long run. In the short run, however, we can’t take for granted that a room will have a mic, which means putting the mic in the remote.

I feel like I've been using Sonos TV speakers and stock remotes more than ever because of voice control and demise of external media boxes. Sold way less automation remotes, even simple ProControl remotes. Other soundbar manufacturers should hurry up and add features like auto on to their products plus the ability to work with TV volume controls. Most of them don't do that surprisingly and they are going to get left behind by integrators that are trying to simplify operation for their low tech customers.

I getting more an more comments like "yes, i have this fancy remote but i just use the roku or apple or dish or comcast (or whatever) because the voice is on it and its sooo much easier". And, i get it!

URC's 1480 has a mic and can talk to alexa and soon google home. Once they crack the Fios, Dish, Apple opportunities, it will make selling 3rd party remotes SO much easier.

I didn't want to post and sound like a Debbie Downer but like others have said, in a world of cord cutting, voice control and the like, universal remotes, even more budget oriented offerings, are becoming a tougher sell.

Did a little setup a couple of months ago with a Sony TV, Sony AVR and an Appletv. Appletv remote powered the display on/off along with the AVR power and volume without issue.

How’s the voice control going to work with someone that likes to play it loud?

You are selling Crestron mostly, correct? Does your go to remote have hard buttons for numbers? What are your thoughts on the need for hard number buttons going forward?

take a look at the URC TRC1480 wand style remote that was just released.

Large touchscreen that old eyes can see better, built in voice (alexa/siri), and number buttons. 

kinda covers all the bases if the voice actually works properly.

Voice remote seems sexy, but consider the case where one bed partner is watching TV while the other is sleeping. Changing the channel or simply turning the TV OFF is an issue.

If you look back here at remotecentral i am sure you will find a post or ten where i thought hard buttons for everything were a must. Today my opinion has changed. I could use a Crestron MTX-3 in my family room at this point.

With xfinity at my house i use voice to navigate like 75% of the time. I use favorite channel touchscreen buttons for the other 25%. I haven't dialed a channel number in for over a year.

I think the Crestron TSR-310 is a great remote. If Crestron can make their MIC button do what the xfinity (and roku and any others) remote does i think the number pad wont matter anymore. Stick it in the GUI for when you feel like you have to use it.

For our clients right now they use favorite channel icons, fav channel feature of their cable or satellite provider and their DVR and Guide to look for content. We sold MTX-3's and TPMC-3Xs for a few years and now the TSR-310. Not one single client has asked about hard buttons for numbers.

Defintely think hard buttons are needed along with basic controls for most 'other' remotes to match such as stop, play, fast forward etc. You certainly don't need alot of hard buttons (I think C4 missed the opportunity to include a row or layout below their current iteration). A dynamic display with mic (google/siri) is the future, but as mentioned, basics with hard buttons help with options (turn off when significant other is asleep vs having backlight on), basic navigation of all remotes that are controlled (on/off, dvr settings, etc.).

I remember about 20 years ago when Sony showed a pointer (mouse) as their remote on the screen as you raised/motioned your hand (forget name) and moved the remote in your hand and it could dynamically navigate but it never took off (even had API). I think a combination of options for customers is the future. Implementation is the key (having the remote do everything any touchscreen can do at minimun). C4s new remote for example is limited and half baked although cool lacks full-thought and future driven;thrown into market. C4 doesn't even have security options for limiting what a remote can/can't do per room or user...this customization is the future and needed if you providing all options on such devices.

Having a remote that is isn't tied to one particular technology helps (Google AND Siri for example) so a dealer can adapt to the customer, not other way around. Options, Options and Options...

If you need lights, shades, scenes or 3rd party switching on your handheld, there will always been a need for Crestron/C4/Savant. But since a good portion of what customers want is built into the displays now, the OEM remote can fill most needs (from what I'm seeing). And sometimes people will ask for the Xfinity voice remote. And that's OK with me...they seem to be alright.

We use Sony and Samsung Frames mainly these days, and they both have pretty good remotes. I like the way the Sony works more; the Samsung is like a weird sort of hybrid IR/RF thing that's harder to configure. The Sony is just way more direct, IMO.

With regards to Crestron, we had a lot of MLX-3s out there, and they had several issues. Broken microswitches, dodgy scroll wheels and fading screens...the HR-series is a welcome change and I think people are happy to see the gimmicks going away. It may not matter; I'm not entirely sure that Crestron will even be a player in residential in a few years unless they fix a couple things.