Pronto Review

Introduction

It’s highly acclaimed, superior performing, incredibly fast, and it also happens to even sport a pretty good looking design. Those are just a fraction of the iPhone’s qualities, as time after time, it’s been touted as one of the best phones around. While it’s not heavy on the specs sheet, Apple’s pride and joy has shown us that the experience supersedes everything else – and that’s what makes it so great!

In contrast, there are a handful of high-end Android smartphones that come equipped with a myriad of amenities not offered by the iPhone. One of them being an IR blaster, which offers users the choice of being able to control their home entertainment system through their phone. Well, if you’ve been itching to have this sort of feature, the Pronto will undoubtedly get you surfing through a lot of content using nothing more than your prized iPhone.

Packaging contains:

• IR extension cable
• 4 AA alkaline batteries
• Quick start guide

Design

At its core, Pronto transforms your iPhone into a personalized universal remote control, doing away with some of the hassles of having to use several remotes. Its design is simple and minimalist, something that blends well with the assortment of furniture in your living room. Sporting a two-toned plastic construction, where the top compartment is glossy and the bottom being a matte finish, it doesn’t really scream anything magnificent or commanding with its design – it’s just meh.

While it’s bottom heavy to ensure it can’t be easily knocked over, there’s a bit of hollowness around the middle and top sections of Pronto. Around the front, there’s an LED light to indicate its connection status – while the rear accommodates its IR blaster and 3.5mm port that’s used by the optional IR extension cable. Naturally, its placement requires it to be within the line of sight of your television, cable box, AV receiver, and anything else you might have.

On its underside, the bottom piece can be twisted off to gain access to its battery compartment. It requires 4 AA batteries, which are thankfully included in the packaging. Besides that, there’s really nothing else to Pronto’s design. Like we said, it’s as minimalist as they come. Hey, at the very least, it can also double as a paper weight.

Peel Smart Remote app

In order to connect with Pronto, you’ll need to download the Peel app through the App Store. It’s a free download, but more importantly, it provides us control to all of our home entertainment devices. Now, the setup of the Peel Smart Remote app might be familiar to some people, seeing that it’s pretty much the same app experience found over on the Android side that certain phones use to operate their IR blaster feature.

The initial setup is a breeze, one that asks us who is our cable provider and the various devices we use (television sets, cable boxes, and much more). Once everything is complete, we can access the “watch TV” remote to simplify things by combining the various remotes into a single one to control out TV watching experience. Essentially, it combines the cable box and television remotes, so that its sends the necessary commands to the appropriate devices. If you happen to prefer using each of the dedicated remotes, you can do that as well, but that means having to constantly switch between them.

In addition, the app offers customized viewing recommendations that aggregate relevant content – such as our favorite channels and a live TV guide. Although it’s not as elaborate in terms of what it can do, the app takes out the burden of having to rely on your cable box’s TV guide experience, which for some, can be a nightmare due to their sluggish performances. Even though the various remotes offer all the pertinent functions, like adjusting the volume or changing the channels, it doesn’t necessarily replicate all of the buttons you might find on your actual, physical remote.

Connectivity

Relying on good old Bluetooth Smart connectivity, our iPhone 6 Plus is able to automatically pair the moment it’s within range – 25 feet maximum in our experience. Aside from that, there’s also the IR blaster that rounds out its connectivity set. As we’ve detailed, Pronto needs to be pointed in the direction of your home entertainment system, since it requires that line of sight to send signals. From what we’ve experienced, it’s pretty quick in sending those commands from our iPhone, to Pronto, and finally to the intended device.

Battery

Combining the 4 AA batteries powering Pronto and its Bluetooth Smart connection, it’s able to yield a maximum battery life of approximately 1 year – so claims the manufacturer. That’s certainly comforting, seeing that you’re not going to have to replace batteries frequently, nor does it require nightly charges if it were rechargeable.

Conclusion

Unless you’ve already invested in a sweet universal remote of some kind, it’s a little tough to justify the need to pick up Pronto. At $49.99, it seems innocuous enough to pick up for those who are frustrated with having to constantly juggle between remotes. Using Pronto eliminates the hassles that come with all of that, naturally, but you’ll need to be mindful about it requiring that line of sight to send commands.

It’s really straightforward in what it does, so you’ll have to convince yourself whether or not it’s something worth investing in. For us, it’s honestly a tough call because it’s a feature that’s nice to have with the iPhone, but it’s not a diehard thing.