In the last ten years I have reviewed countless products and whenever I am asked to choose a favourite, I only have one answer: The now long discontinued Harmony Elite remote control. With Harmony shuttering the software layer last year , it was all but over.. but in the unforgettable words of an old Jedi master, there is another.

During the Covid pandemic of 2019, Unfolded Circle started working on a universal remote control that was flexible enough to integrate almost any modern device into a single unified user interface. Unfolded Circle were kind enough to send us the latest iteration of this system, simply known as Remote Control 3, along with its matching Dock 3 charging dock.

 

Design and Build Quality

Generally speaking, I don’t care much for unboxing or packaging in general but Unfolded Circle have gone to some real effort with their products. Both the Remote 3 and Dock 3 are packaged in matching black boxes, garnished with shimmering embossed product images and reflective highlights. Thankfully, the opulence of the boxes is equally matched by the treasure within.

Both the Remote 3 and Dock 3 look amazing and share the same minimalist aesthetic. Both units look very plush with their mix of glossy piano black and a metallic matt grey finish.

The Remote 3 measures 197mm long, 45mm wide and a thickness of 9mm. While the bottom has a slight curve, the Remote 3 is otherwise a neat rectangular prism. On its face is a large 44mm x 68mm touchscreen with an assortment of buttons above and beneath a large circular pad. Just beneath the screen, a touch slider is also included. The sides of the unit are clean, with a small off centre IR window up front and three small charging contacts on its rear. The top half of the remote’s back is made up of a piano black wireless charging pad, while the bottom half is unremarkable save for some compliance logos and subtle branding.

The Remote 3 really does look fantastic and has despite its ninety degree angled design, feels great in hand. The slight curve at the bottom comfortably sits in the palm, while the dimension seemed to perfectly locate my thumb over the centre of the circular pad. The Remote is cold to the touch which coupled with its 168g weight, really makes it feel quite substantial in your hand. Due to its clean minimalist design, seams are practically non-existent and the whole package really looks and feels rather special.

The Dock 3 maintains the same minimalist aesthetic with it’s matching grey metallic rectangular prism form factor. With a 80mm square top, the Dock 3 has a height of just over 24mm. Centrally located on the square top, is a piano black circle with a recessed slot to fit the Remote 3 while it is charging. Other than a small Unfolded Circle logo on the front left hand side, the front and sides of the Dock 3 are unremarkable. From left to right, the rear of the Dock 3 contains a 100Mbit POE Ethernet port, two IR blaster/extender ports and a USB-C port. The base station also features an OLED screen, microphone for voice input, a near invisible control button and a small LED on its underside front.

While the Remote 3 package came with just a safety booklet and information booklet, the Dock 3 was complemented with an IR blaster and IR extender (a more focused blaster), a braided USB-C cable and a ferrite core which can be placed on your USB-C cable to reduce potential electromagnetic interference.

 

Setup, Configuration and Daily Use

After turning on the Remote 3, it’s touchscreen runs you through a quick setup sequence, having you selecting a language, location and Wifi connection. The Remote 3 works on 2.4Ghz/5Ghz Wifi and also has Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity. While the screen looked nice and crisp, the text was a little small for my old eyes. Once connected to the base station, a list of integration suggestions appear, including Philips Hue, Android TVs and Sonos speakers. We enabled the web configurator which provided a pin and QR code for easy access.

The web configurator was reminiscent of the old Harmony Remote Silverlight software (but better!) and while the Unfolded Circle interface took a little while to get used to, it generally made sense after a brief acclimatisation. The web interface made setup a lot easier, not least of which due to its larger text!

After plugging the Dock 3 into our Ubiquity POE switch, we used the web configurator to setup the dock via Bluetooth and after a few updates, we were up and running. All in all it took a little under 20 minutes till we were good to go. Well, sort of.

While the basic setup was done, the Remote 3 requires a lot more effort to get it into a useful state. Unfortunately, we found that the built in integrations weren’t much help as our unique list of test devices simply weren’t in the built in list. Of course, this is a convenience issue more than anything, as the Remote 3 and Dock 3 can learn how to operate most any device!

For testing purposes, we taught the Remote 3 to operate our ancient Pioneer Kuro TV; our more recently acquired Dune Max 8K and an LG Split System.

Setting up the remote was quite time intensive, even for the few simple items we used for testing. While this process was pretty labour intensive, it wasn’t a particularly difficult or arduous and the web interface really helped make things easy. Via the web configurator we went through the process of naming the device we were setting up; set the dock to learn a button; pointed the original remote at the Dock 3 and then named said button. Easy. We repeated this process for all the main buttons of our devices and mapped them to either the physical buttons on the Remote 3 or the user interface. The user interface buttons (accessed via the touch-screen) could be resized and labelled with either text or icons and on the whole, was highly customisable.

The general setup and interface was very reminiscent of the old Harmony process but as previously mentioned, far more customisable and also more involved. While the Harmony remote was easier to configure quickly with its cornucopia of built in IR codes, the Remote 3 is far more capable and customisable. It’s essentially a matter of effort vs reward – Setting up Unfolded Circle’s Remote 3 could take days of fine tuning and customising all the icons, buttons and backgrounds. The good news though, is that once it’s setup exactly the way you like it, it’s good to go for life… unless you upgrade your devices and/or integrate new activities/macros into your system.

During setup we did encounter a few random network drop-outs which were a little unnerving as they forced us to lose whatever code we were learning at that particular moment, but beyond this, things went relatively smoothly.

As we had done with the Harmony Remote, we setup activities so that we could simply press a “movies” button that would turn on the TV and media player and via automated button presses, navigate to the movies folder (for example) on our Dune Max 8K media player.

Over the course of our testing we continued to see a few wifi drop-outs but they weren’t regular and were only really noticeable because we were essentially looking for them. The remote’s battery life wasn’t ideal and the Remote 3 can’t be used like a regular remote. For our usage we found that placing the Remote 3 back on the dock each night was enough to alleviate any battery anxiety. Worth noting is that the Remote 3 can also be charged wirelessly via Qi at 5W,  if you have a charger lying around.

Beyond the odd wifi drop-out, the only other gripe we had in every day use was the slight delay upon picking the remote up. After sitting idle on the couch, the Remote 3 takes around two seconds to wake itself up and be ready for use. This wasn’t a huge deal in daily use, but it was certainly noticeable.

Also worth noting is that the customisation and use cases for the Remote 3 are, well.. near infinite. Not only can the Remote 3 learn from your IR remotes, it can connect to devices via Bluetooth and can even integrate with Home Assistant. In a very real way, the Remote 3 is a tinkerer’s paradise and we’ll say it again.. the more time you put into setting this device up, the more you will get out of it.

Despite its flaws, we found the Remote 3 great to use daily as an everything remote. It really does feel great in hand and while it did need frequent charging, it was convenient and easily replaced our ancient Harmony setup. While it is true that during our testing we didn’t really scratch the surface of its full potential, that potential is ever present and just waiting for a relatively sizeable time investment to bring it to fruition.

 

Unfolded Circle Remote 3 Specifications

Remote 3

Processor: Quad core 64 bit arm
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 32GB
Operating System: Linux based Unfolded OS
Wifi: 2.4GHz and 5GHz (802.11 a/g/b/n/ac)
Bluetooth: 5.2
Battery: 2400mAh Rechargeable Lithium-ion
Wireless charging: 5W

Dock 3

Processor: ESP32 S3
Wifi: 2.4GHz (802.11 b/g/n)
Bluetooth: 5
Ethernet: 100mbit
3.5mm jack ports: 2x (Configurable IR Output or RS232)
Power: USB-C power input and POE 802.3af

For a full list of technical specifications, please visit Unfolded Circle’s Remote 3 product page.

 

Final Verdict: Should You Buy the Remote Control 3?

The Remote 3 and Dock 3 are a luxurious yet intricate solution to the universal remote control problem. While I have no problem recommending this product, the caveat is that to get the best out of it, you really need to invest some time and effort. As mentioned above, this investment is well worth it, but its good to know before you purchase, as this is not a regular userland plug and play device. The battery life is also something to consider, but how this will affect you is highly dependent on your use case.

So is the Remote 3 and Dock 3 a worthy replacement for the Harmony Elite? Yes and no. The Remote 3 is certainly sleek and its customisability and potential is far greater than the Elite ever was, but the code database of the Elite and its relatively plug and play nature – even with that godawful Silverlight software – was by comparison, much easier to setup. Price-wise the Remote 3 is certainly not cheap but not ridiculously far off the original Harmony Elite pricing, for reference.

The Remote 3 is great but it has the potential to be even better and that’s what tips the scales, even with the learning curve and required time investment. This is a clear case of what you reap, is what you sow.

The Remote 3 is available for pre-order directly from Unfolded Circle for 329 Euro with the Dock 3 for an additional 99 Euro or as a bundle for 419Euro.