Announcements

State of the Union

It’s a very different App Store than the one we started on in 2010. We’ve seen so many competitors large and small appear and disappear over time. In the last few years, the App Store has transitioned from one based on app quality and engineering to one largely based on marketing. This was an inevitable transition in my view. In our own category, there are now so many apps that many are broadly distinguishing themselves only by punctation marks in their app title. Since the name of the game is getting found via keyword search, the only thing many of these apps care about is the right keywords in their titles. The engineering and features of most of the competition these days is largely non-existent as their objective is simply to be the first app downloaded by unsuspecting users. Any combination of the words “tv control smart universal remote” is another app, sometimes with an extra semicolon or diamond character to trick App Review into letting them through on the same name, and without exception these apps are like brochures for a real app that they will never be.

For some time, and as mentioned in last year’s State of the Union, I assumed these apps would all disappear as they were virtually feature free and don’t even have real app names so how can anyone remember them. Yet, some have lasted, and a few spend well over half a million dollars each per month ensuring they own those keywords, buy ratings, and buy fake reviews. They buy ratings to boost their perceived popularity – you can tell this happens because among other reasons at random times they will suddenly lose 15,000+ ratings in a single day. Apple’s systems do some kind of automated maintenance to detect such things and auto-remove them, but it’s quite rare and incomplete, so those apps just keep doing it.

I thought for a bit, “hey we should make a video exposing these fake apps paying for their popularity and polluting the App Store!” I collected all the evidence in great detail and wrote a script that was damning. Before filming, I realized the target users would never see it, so there’s no point. Only Apple can put a stop to the surge of marketing trash apps cluttering the App Store.

What we did do instead is the old adage “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” We created an app in this “TV Control” sub-category, and we even were able to re-use our old “Simple Control” name for it – an advanced concept wherein apps have memorable names, though perhaps not to our benefit as using real names just wastes keyword space! But we simply can’t buy ratings like the leading apps in the category, and can’t engage in nonsense like apps without real names. The new app won’t do as well as the fake marketing apps, but for those many users that actually need a simple app just to control TVs, we now provide that. Within that category, it provides an impressive amount of real functionality unique in the space. The new app if you have friends that just need to control a TV (or many TVs) can be downloaded here. It is inexpensive, and Roomie is the perfect upgrade for such users as they expand their systems one day.

Meanwhile, it’s been a productive year. We released another new app called Now Showing – Movie Poster TV. Designed to show live posters associated with home theaters taking advantage of Roomie integration to display current status while watching movies, it’s a very fun app to use and build. Check out the full walkthrough and demo video here. And you can download the app for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS here.

Roomie Remote Version 8.6 is focused on optimization and incremental enhancements across the app. For the first time, we’re introducing full localization initially to Spanish and French. It’s a harder app to localize than one might imagine due to the many other systems we work with.

The new Apple TV Media Guide is one of the headline new features. All Apple TV devices, assuming you have both the Companion and Airplay device types added, will now display an App Launch Media Guide for Apple TV. Launching apps is also available now via Activity Commands, and that even supports Deep Links so that specific content can be opened for apps that support it. Our extensive Apple TV support was already one of our brightest spots, and this really takes it to the next level.

Google TV does not offer the level of dynamic app launching that Apple TV does under the hood, but we have also added an App Launch Media Guide there for popular apps.

SmartThings changed pretty much everything in the last year. We started almost from square one re-engineering our integration. The old SmartApps can be removed if you still have access to the Graph API. I’m sure more features can be added here over time now that everything is updated, just let us know what you need. You will need to delete your old SmartThings Cloud Service and add it as a fresh device if you have used it before as the in-app warning will tell you.

The ISY/eISY family of devices is something we’ve supported almost longer than any other device. People are still using them, and those people made clear they’d like to see some optimizations – some of those users apparently have an awful lot of devices! Make sure your ISY is up to date, and we automatically switch to a method of reading status that is far less taxing on both sides.

For subscriptions, the big news is that almost all features have been normalized across all modern subscriptions. For instance, Voice Control, Guest Sharing, and Custom Devices are now available from all subscriptions. Subscriptions are now differentiated by the number of Homes, Rooms, Activities, and Devices – or the lack of any such limits in the case of Unlimited. Device limits for modern subscriptions are currently not enforced during the transition period for existing subscribers – enforcement of those limits will resume September 2024 after everyone has had a chance to renew knowing this. Since these limits also existed until September 2022, it won’t be much of a change for anyone. Also, remember that device limits never count HomeKit Accessories. Device limits continue to act as usual for all V6 subscriptions that always worked as such. It was just too confusing even for us to consult the table of which feature was in which level, so this normalization makes things much simpler. A new monthly option for Unlimited has been introduced while Unlimited Perpetual has been removed from sale. We do plan to offer Perpetual from time to time in the future, as we did for the week between Christmas and New Year’s 2023, but it will not be generally available at all times to all users. Those with an active Unlimited subscription will get access to it in the future from time to time.

Note that none of this applies to V4 and V5 subscriptions. If you are still on one of those from an old app, please stop renewal and subscribe from the modern app. As announced a year ago, we will hard stop renewals for V4/V5 subs at the end of 2024.

As we do every year, System Requirements have increased by one major release to iOS/iPadOS 16.1, tvOS 16.1, and macOS 13.1. Make sure all Roomie Remote clients on all platforms are using the same Roomie version. Today we are releasing all platforms simultaneously to ensure that is enabled for everyone.

It’s been a fun year. Now we have 3 apps creating a family that complements each other. Simple Control for TVs, a basic starter app that is very inexpensive, Now Showing for Live Movie Posters, a totally unique app that really classes up home theaters, and Roomie Remote, a full-fledged AV and Home Control system providing universal compatibility, an enjoyable and refined user interface, and high reliability with 12 years of maturity on the App Store.

Will – September 14, 2023 (updated February 17, 2024 for Version 8.6.2)

State of the Union

Version 8 focuses on updating core pieces of the app. The primary systems of the app including the Activities Panel and Action Panel have been significantly updated. One of the most important integrations from long ago has been our partnership with Lutron. In this release, all of the modern Lutron controllers are supported including quite a few advanced use cases. For Homeworks QSX, keypad monitoring is now supported. On the other end, Pico hard button remotes are now supported with Caséta. We’re very proud of how well integrated this is, and that’s due in large part to top-notch systems from Lutron that allowed us to explore these finer details in a very reliable way.

Meanwhile, multiple window support has been added. This is most obvious on macOS, but also supports the newly introduced iPadOS 16.1’s Stage Manager as well as iPadOS 15’s side-by-side mode. Video Cameras and diagnostic logging can be split off into their own windows.

Our built-in Intercomm system also available as a stand-alone app now supports direct HomePod intercom announcements live – not pre-recorded. Sonos announcements are now much higher quality. Both target types support sending announcements to all known speakers simultaneously.

In 2015, we added Simple Control Accounts. These accounts offered a secondary payment system designed for integrators, Remote Access, and Cloud Sync. We later consolidated in Version 6 (2018) so that all payments go through Apple for simplicity and security, cloud sync goes through iCloud, and Remote Access uses VPN thus obviating the original accounts. The payments through the old system have finally all expired and thus are shut down and consolidated in this release. All of the old accounts, email addresses, and names are being purged for privacy. Going forward as of this release, everything goes through Sign In with Apple offering you numerous privacy options while also providing the only thing we actually needed which is a unique identifier to distinguish a particular home for relaying Alexa Commands. Existing Alexa links will continue to work as long as you perform an in-place upgrade from a working linked device. New Alexa links, if you choose to create one, use Sign In with Apple authentication instead of the old accounts. This long-planned transition may look simple, but took a huge amount of planning and work behind the scenes.

System Requirements have increased by the usual +1 annual change. Remember to evaluate your Primary Controller platform to make sure it is up to date. The current recommended Primary Controller for new purchases is either an iPad Air 5 if you plan to use it as a dashboard, or an iPhone 13 mini – with an 1G Ethernet dongle on either. The key element is the CPU. An A12 CPU (such as that in the 2021 Apple TV 4K) should be considered the absolute minimum today. A Primary Controller with numerous video cameras on the Dashboard and Automation tasks really benefits from an M1 such as that in the iPad Air 5, but the new 2022 Apple TV 4K with an A15 CPU is also an excellent choice. The actual minimum requirement is any device that runs iOS 15, tvOS 15, macOS 12. Note that the new widgets requires iOS 16.1 or macOS 13.1, and Live Activities support requires iOS 16.1. The watchOS app requires watchOS 8.5.

In early November, Roomie 8.1 launched adding several significant upgrades. The most notable are Live Activities, and Instant Home Sharing. Since the V6 release, we have relied entirely upon iCloud Sharing to share with Family or Guests. We now provide a direct local network sharing method bypassing all of that. For users that can rely upon synchronization over the local network, it is the new preferred method of sync. Remote synchronization is still performed via iCloud, and iCloud Sharing is still supported. A core use case for this feature is visiting a home. You are visiting your parents’ home, or your integrator is visiting your home. Simply by getting on Wi-Fi, the home can be shared instantly. This feature can be disabled in the Always-on Settings panel if you have miscreants on your Wi-Fi at times.

In late December, Roomie 8.2 launched new widgets designed in the new style and framework, no longer relegated to the bottom of the widget list with other old widgets. These are hot off the presses and they can go right on your Home Screen. The old widget has now been fully deprecated/replaced by these new widgets.

In addition, December saw the launch of a new sister app for Roomie called Now Showing – Movie Poster TV, a Live Movie Poster display for Home Theaters. Deep integration with Roomie Remote provides live feedback of in-progress movies including artwork and progress. Interfaces scales up to 8K TVs for direct control from a connected macOS, iOS, or iPadOS device showing your posters on a monitor or via Screen Mirroring. Ideal deployments include a Mac mini connected to a vertical wall-mount Samsung Frame TV, or a wall-mounted iPad. Remotely control the display from your iPhone. Check out the new app yourself here!

In mid-February 2023, Roomie 8.3 added a new Large size for the Recent Activities widget. Media Guides were significantly revamped across the board, and the Zidoo Media Guide went from just an SMB Browser to a full-blown Movies and TV Shows guide integrated with Zidoo Home Theater. It is certainly one of the best Media Guides at this point. The Kaleidescape, Plex, and Kodi Media Guides were also improved as part of that. Plex Media Player support broadly was updated to accommodate numerous improvements over time on their side as well as adding support for their Two Factor Authentication.

In late May 2023, Roomie 8.4 returned full Keyboard Control to Apple TV! This took an unbelievable amount of work, but it is really great to have it back. It is now recommended to add both the Airplay and Companion devices for each of your Apple TVs. The Activity should target the Airplay device as the Primary. The Companion device simply needs to exist anywhere in your Devices list to enable Keyboard Control from the Airplay device. Version 8.4 also returned full support for the latest Android TV/Google TV models – sporting full keyboard control and app launching!

Roomie Remote continues to provide a high-end control system for a low-end price. We used to provide a Comparison page on our website, but the problem was simply maintaining accuracy over time as our competitors’ prices increased ever further into the stratosphere and our additional features over them were so substantial that it was hard to believe, so we removed it. The difference is now so great that we don’t need to be the source of that information. Our prices are lower. Our functionality is comparable and in most cases significantly better especially when it comes to anything Apple-related.

There are no changes to modern pricing and subscriptions with this release. Older V6 subscriptions have been upgraded and prices normalized to match them with the current subscriptions. As part of that transition, Family Sharing has been activated for those as well. This means there will be no need to migrate to a V7/8 subscription as all subscriptions from V6 through V8 operate as a coherent family. Note that this does not apply to V4 and V5 subscriptions. If you are still on one of those from an old app, please stop renewal and subscribe from the modern app. We will hard stop renewals for V4/V5 subs in late 2023.

Please remember to update your reviews in the App Store, and most importantly tell your friends about Roomie Remote. The App Store these days is a swamp of keyword shenanigans. Whole apps in our category exist solely to target keyword lookups. Think bots, but they are apps. The apps themselves are barely real, but skirt around Apple’s rules sporting gimmicks like 1 week subscriptions with super-high prices for trivial functionality. They are the App Store equivalent of reverse mortgage commercials tricking old people. Take the words “universal” and “remote” and “tv” and “control” and you will find an app named every combination of those words with almost no functionality and unusable UI. These scams trick the unsuspecting to accept a rapid subscription cycle and then pay bots to pump their review and download counts, but meanwhile all that trash makes it harder and harder to find quality apps like us. Hopefully, Apple will do something about this one day, but meanwhile the best defense is frequent review updates and word of mouth.

We are the only app in our category that provides privacy, universal compatibility with both A/V and home devices, an enjoyable and refined user interface, and high reliability with 11 years of experience on the App Store. Every year, we see many former competitors disappear. Yet, we continue on. We love the app and we use it all the time is a primary reason. It’s a Passion.

Will – Updated May 19, 2023 for V8.4

Feature Details

• Apple TV Keyboard Support has returned! Add both Airplay and Companion devices to your Devices list. Set your Activity to use the Airplay device as Primary. Keyboard support will then be activated. [8.4]
• Android TV and Google TV Control including all the latest models, full keyboard control and app launching. [8.4]
• Samsung TV 2023 models are now supported. [8.4]
• Zidoo Media Guide is now a full scale Media Guide with full support Movies and TV Shows. Make sure to Force Code Set Update before loading it the first time if you already have Zidoo devices. [8.3]
• Plex Media Player support has been significantly revised. Removing and replacing any existing Plex-related device is advised. First add the associated Apple TV or nVidia Shield device, then add your Plex Media Player to associate the correct Media Guide. [8.3]
• Many Media Guides have been updated and overhauled especially including Kaleidescape, but also Kodi and Plex. Updated presentation, information, and layout. [8.3]
• New Widgets! Recent Activities and Recent Rooms widgets have been added. These modern widgets replace the old deprecated widget. [8.2]
• iOS 16.1 Live Activities: Now provided on supported iPhone models. Start an Activity to see progress in the Dynamic Island or Lock Screen outside the app. [8.1]
• Instant Home Sharing: Alternative sharing method requiring local network access. New devices that join your network and install Roomie can join with one tap when this feature is active. [8.1]
• Full Support for Lutron Homeworks QSX, Radio RA3, Radio RA2 Select, and Caséta.
  • Homebar integration for Dimmers, Switches, and Shades.
  • Automation including keypad monitoring to take actions based on keypad buttons.
  • Pico remotes for Caséta including programming hard buttons and repeating Volume buttons.
• Multiple Window Support for iPadOS and macOS. Dedicated Camera viewer windows can be opened from the Homebar Cameras panel. Live Diagnostics window can be opened from the Settings panel (and then remain open as a separate window).
• Intercomm Features:
  • HomePods are now eligible targets for live Intercomm announcements either all at once or individually.
  • Audio quality of Announce via Sonos has been doubled.
• ActionPanel Improvements:
  • Channel buttons now automatically populate in Action Panels based on which channels you use. Channels flow into Action Panel margins on iPadOS/macOS layouts. Leftmost margin is reserved for Channels if they exist.
  • Function buttons automatically flow into the Media Bar if other media buttons are configured.
  • Media Bar is now editable in the Design editor.
  • Gesture Panel redesigned and now integrates progress, media feedback, and program artwork.
  • The DPad is now laid out to the right of the PlayPad in Landscape mode alleviating the need to scroll.
  • Margin button fill order is now top to bottom left to right.
• Activities/Dashboard Improvements:
  • Tapping the active button of a current Activity now reveals an inline controller for common actions.
  • Swipe left on Activities in the Activity List now shows Edit/Delete/Off buttons as appropriate.
  • Camera layout significantly improved. All cameras now support snapshots of last images. Improved flow control in the presence of many video camera streams. The Apple TV edition of the app also has these improvements.
  • Many visual improvements throughout Action Panels.
  • Improvements to user-selected icons including thousands of new high-quality symbols. In some cases, you may need to re-select an appropriate icon for some Activities.
• Device Features:
  • Apple TV tvOS 16 Compatibility.
  • JBL SDP-35/38/55/58 Feedback parsing.
  • Nest thermostats now offer more options when activating the Fan timer upon long press of the fan button in the Homebar Thermostats panel.
  • Insteon Cloud Service has been restored as the company providing it returned to life.
• Final deprecation of the old Roomie Accounts: If you have one of the very old Roomie Accounts (2015 era) linked to the Amazon Alexa Skill, you should be automatically migrated to the new Sign In With Apple accounts. Amazon Alexa support is now linked via Sign In with Apple instead. All previous forms of login/accounts have been removed.
• Prevent Screen Idle is a new switch in the Always-on Services settings panel replacing the old related options. Primary Controllers should make sure this is turned on.
• Added Invert Start Commands button to Activity ->Setup -> Stop Commands panel to auto-copy all Start commands with an inverted action. Setting up Inline Activities to turn on and off groups of lights is an example usage of this that is now 1 button. [8.2]
• Time Display on the Activity Panel can now be turned on or off from the Rooms panel.
• HomeKit Camera Audio support is now enabled in the HomeBar and Camera Windows.
• Subscription Guest Sharing (a feature of Unlimited Pro, Unlimited Perpetual, and the old Roomie Service Unlimited) has been completely re-implemented and is much more reliable. The Primary Controller must be on the Apple ID that owns the subscription. Guest devices must be on the same network as the Primary Controller.
• Alexa Smart Home and Custom Skills are now authenticated via the new Sign In with Apple accounts. Re-linking these skills is generally a good idea although we do auto-migrate in the general case.
• Increased system requirements to iOS 15 / iPadOS 15 / tvOS 15 / macOS 12 / watchOS 8.5. Widgets require iOS 16.1 or macOS 13.1. Live Activities require iOS 16.1.
• Many other fixes and improvements across the app.

TLDR Summary

• Roomie for Apple Watch provides extensive control right from your watch!
• Roomie Voice Control provides a new voice control method entirely from the app!
• Apple TV tvOS 15 Support and native Android TV control are among a long list of other improvements.
• V7 is now a free app to assist with adding guests to your system and improve the trial experience. All functionality requires an active subscription or trial or perpetual purchase.
• Subscription plans are revised and now support Family Sharing. Unlimited/Pro subscriptions also support Guest Sharing.
• Older subscriptions remain compatible all the way back to V4.5.11. Features of older subscriptions are unchanged.
• macOS platform is now a Universal Purchase. The new subscriptions are shared seamlessly between our iOS, macOS, and tvOS apps. Users of the older macOS app should migrate to the new V7 app as it will not appear as an update for them.
• Content herein updated for the May 2022 V7.4 release.

Background

Roomie for Apple Watch has been added in V7.4! Broad support for Rooms, Activities, play controls, directional control with gestures, volume control, and even channel guides with live TV listings is provided. Some of you may recall we featured Apple Watch support many years ago, but removed it due to Apple’s networking limitations that forced us to relay all commands through the paired iPhone. This issue has not been resolved, Apple Watch still has no basic networking support. Yet, for many scenarios, especially with the totally revamped app, the new Roomie for Apple Watch does provide some pretty great utility and was an oft-requested feature. Extensive rethinking has been applied to virtually every aspect of the app, and we’re happy to re-introduce it now with across the board improvements in performance, interface, and features. It is included with all subscription levels.

Roomie Voice Control is the headline feature of V7. Our initial foray into Voice Control began with our Amazon Echo Custom Skill in 2015. It required a lengthy preamble “tell Roomie Remote to watch…” for every command. We soon followed that with an Alexa Smart Home Skill providing one of the broadest voice control solutions for AV in the industry (did anyone ever really catch up? I don’t think so.) The Smart Home Skill required only the “Alexa” preamble, but the syntax was extremely limited. It was fine for starting an Activity, but nothing with detail. Some commands such as tuning a channel by name just would never be possible there.

In November 2020, Amazon changed the nature of Alexa Custom Skill operation for all apps such that after issuing a command, it now stops, tells the user that it is “relaying the command to Roomie Remote from Roomie Remote Incorporated”, and then proceeds with the operation. This time-wasting expository detritus repeated after every single command greatly decreased the usability of Alexa skills, and there is still no way to turn it off. The original Alexa seemed like it might one day become Hal 9000 – not particularly a good thing, but definitely powerful and intuitive. The new goal seems to be Johnnycab from Total Recall.

The Amazon Alexa system was simply not designed for home AV automation, and is getting worse over time as bureaucracy and feature creep erode its core. While we will hope for the best from Alexa in the future, and continue to support our Alexa skills, it is clear that it is time to ensure our own destiny for voice control.

In 2019, we also added Siri Shortcuts support. That functionality works well in Shortcuts. It is not clear if Apple intends to extend that into a generalized voice control system that doesn’t require manually setting up each item the user wants to control, but after some years we have to assume not.

Given these factors, we built Roomie Voice Control consistent with our design model using iOS or macOS listeners allowing us to use much simpler syntax not possible with Alexa or Siri, obviate pointless exposition, eliminate the need to send audio to any cloud service, and in the end provide a far better user experience optimized for our use cases. Importantly, since it’s a fully internal Voice Control system, we can expand on it easily rather than for instance go back through Amazon’s UL certification process that can easily take half a year just to add a simple feature.

At this point, we have no plan to remove Alexa support. Yes, we’d prefer if it just went away so we could focus only on Roomie Voice Control, but just enough people still use it that removing it is not yet realistic. We believe Roomie Voice Control is better in every way. It does require using iOS/macOS devices, but so does the app so that really isn’t a significant change. We encourage everyone using the Alexa support to transition to Roomie Voice Control.

Support for tvOS 15 was an urgent issue for Roomie 7. It turned out by surprise in Summer 2021 that the method used to control Apple TV was completely removed in tvOS 15. This required a herculean effort to build a new method from scratch in time for release. The new method brings with it some features that didn’t exist before such as direct App Launching, and some features such as Siri and media feedback will return over time. This new method is called “Companion”. In November 2021, we added a second new method of control that restores the media feedback and voice control over Apple TV as well. This method is based on Airplay. You can choose to add both devices or just one depending on your needs.

Android TV Native IP control has been added. There are many devices one can control this way. A lot of them also have alternate control mechanisms. For instance, do you want to control a Sony TV via native Android TV or via Sony’s control protocol – in general, the answer to that is to use the dedicated control protocol. Some are less clear such as whether to control nVidia Shield using ADB or Android TV. ADB requires activating some low-level options whereas Android TV simply pairs out of the box. ADB has unique features like app launching. Android TV can sometimes provide smoother gestures. In some cases, you may find adding the device using multiple methods and using the best features of each may be right for your use case.

Intercomm is an entire product that has been added both inside Roomie and also available as a separate app. Providing audio and video intercom service between all iOS and macOS Roomie and Intercomm clients, including those offline or remote, we’re extremely pleased with the ease of setup and quality of operation of this new product. Intercomm is included with all Unlimited/Pro levels of service as well as for those directly subscribed in the separate Intercomm app. For Roomie users, there is no need to use the separate Intercomm app, but for others who just want a lightweight intercom, it is available in either form.

Finally, I want to provide an update on topics that were major improvements in V6.

Privacy was a huge design driver in V6 and that has continued in V7. We’re reducing the need for user accounts that had already been almost buried in V6. They now only exist for Alexa control. No configurations ever pass through our systems unless you explicitly send them to us as part of a support ticket for analysis. All of our metrics about the user base are derived only from Apple’s opt-in system. Please keep in mind that if you don’t opt-in when Apple asks you these questions, your crashes and your use cases are not counted.

The only real downside for our continuing push here is we don’t end up with reams of marketing data and we don’t have a way to contact our users reliably. In our relentlessly privacy-violating current world, this is simply the only path that feels right. Please visit our forums to get the latest news more frequently on our products.

Please keep in mind that the App Store is an engine that lives on 5 star reviews. We have almost no marketing, but depend on users spreading the word about the quality of the app and periodically refreshing 5 star reviews. It’s even easier to add those now that the base app is free. So many apps are a flash in the pan (just look up “tv remote” on the App Store and wade through the sea of trash much of which hasn’t been updated in years or is a whole app based around a minor feature we had 9 years ago). We depend on continuing support from our users, and that’s how we’ve made it 10 years last month while basically every one of our actual competitors is gone.

Harmony Synchronization. This feature is still working great. Despite Logitech shutting down Harmony development and production in April 2021, if you have a Harmony system, Roomie is the perfect transition. Activities synchronize automatically between the two systems.

Cloud Synchronization has now benefited from years of refinements to achieve a really solid level of reliability, freeing us from the old Simple Hub concept. Additional improvements are in V7 eliminating more cases that previously required a Primary Controller.

Subscriptions are unchanged for existing users. New subscriptions (also available to existing users) are now based on Homes, Rooms, Activities, and other features – no longer on device counts. The app itself is once again free like it was in the V5 period. This makes it easier to add guests and involves less friction for people trying the app for the first time. All new subscriptions use Apple’s Family Sharing making it easier to share within a home. Unlimited/Pro subscriptions also include our Guest Sharing feature. For older subscriptions started in a different app, you still need to return to the older app periodically to restore purchases. Migrating to the new V7 subscriptions before your next renewal is a good idea. While we have no plan to cancel the V4 or V5 subscriptions, we can’t control whether the ancient app runs on your current device sufficiently to restore purchases. iOS is a constantly moving target, and you should always be on the latest iOS with the newest Roomie release.

We continue to offer Unlimited Perpetual which has been a popular option. Purchase of Unlimited Perpetual is tied to the app itself (unlike subscriptions per above), but we guarantee a minimum of 3 years maintenance (fixes/updates) for any such purchase.

See below for a more detailed list of changes in V7 that will also be updated over time with items added during minor/sub-minor releases. Thanks for being a loyal customer!

– Will

September 24, 2021

Additional Change History

• Apple TV tvOS 15 Control: Restored compatibility. Some new features such as app launching have been added. Two different device types are available via auto-discovery. The Companion device type offers app launching, but not media feedback or Siri voice control. The Airplay device offers both of those, but not app launching. You may add both device types if you need both sets of functionality. The Airplay device type is generally more full-featured and should be your default choice.
• Roomie Voice Control! A new method of Voice Control has been added. When activated from Roomie’s Settings, the following syntax can be used. This feature is specific to each device, so you choose which devices listen for voice commands by activating it on that device. Roomie must be in the foreground to listen for commands. All commands begin with “Roomie”. If you do not specify a Room Name, the current room will be assumed.

• Roomie Voice Control Syntax
  • watch/play/turn on/start/launch/activate/open/toggle {Activity Name} [in {Room Name}]
  • turn off/power off/system off/shutdown [in {Room Name}]
  • play/pause/stop/mute/unmute [in {Room Name}]
  • skip/replay/next/previous [# times] [in {Room Name}]
  • set volume {#} [in {Room Name}]
  • volume {up,down} [# times] [in {Room Name}]
  • tune {channel name or number}

• Android TV IP Control: Add Android TV using its native control method. This includes modern Sony TVs, nVidia Shield, and many others. The existing ADB control methods also remain. Each control method has some features unique to it.
• Nest Thermostat Control: See the website knowledge base for detailed steps on adding Google Nest Thermostat control to your system. [7.2.0]
• Zidoo Media Player IP Control with SMB Browser and progress display. [7.2.0]
• Reavon UHD Blu-ray Player IP Control [7.2.0]
• Panasonic Blu-ray Player IP Control: Current models including the DP-UB820 and DP-UB9000 can now be controlled directly. [7.0.1]
• Notification Commands: All command sequences including Automations now support sending Notifications, eg. sending a Notification that a particular sensor tripped or an Activity launched is now possible. [7.3.0]
• SSH Support: SSH support is now provided as an underlying connection type for code sets with server-side public key and client-side password support. A generic code set of brand SSH type Auxiliary allows sending shell commands to compatible devices such as macOS systems. [7.1.0]
• TV Guide listings country support expanded to include Australia, Netherlands, Poland, Ireland, Belgium. Australia Foxtel may not provide listings. [7.1.0]
• Automation panel now supports combination Time-based and Device-based automations. For example, you may now create: “at 7am, if this Sony TV is not currently powered on, execute the Watch Cameras activity”, or “at 10pm, if this Sony TV is on HDMI 3 input, execute System Off activity.” [7.2.0]
• Volume Matching: Redesigned Volume Hard Buttons feature. No longer relies on deprecated iOS components. Volume is now always relative to the iOS device volume. Converts to device volume. Added delay and warning before apparent large volume transitions. We advise taking a moment to learn the new behavior using a source with no sound.
• Lutron Caséta: New and improved control method with much broader support including hard button control from Pico remotes.
• Various fixes to Homebar to support non-HomeKit Shades such as those in Caséta.
• HomeKit Synchronization can now be disabled on a per-home basis.
• Automatic Home switching based on actual location. Requires Location permission to operate. Clear or set the Home location in the Homes panel to disable/enable.
• Sonos: Announcements via Sonos in Intercomm now provide a local-network-only grouped mode to synchronize all intercom audio throughout the home. This mode requires the sending device to be on the LAN or VPN. Remote intercom announcements via Sonos can be sent via the Sonos Cloud mode. [7.1.0]
• Barco projector IP control including display of detected content aspect ratio and crop control for Cinemascope models.
• IP control for Zigen SW42 Plus models.
• Trinnov/JBL receivers now display decoder and mode in the volume dial.
• Wattbox models on recent firmware are now controllable.
• SnapAV Wattboxes of both the old and new variety are now fully integrated in the Switches category of the Homebar. If you have Wattbox devices in your configuration, Update the manifest in the device to activate this. [7.1.0]
• ATV Gesture Control and other fixes (for tvOS 14).
• Homes Editor: The device you are on is always listed in the second position for the Primary Controller menu.
• Disabled Googlecast discovery: It’s too low value with 2 other discoveries on the same device(s) potentially. Can be added manually.
• Updated TiVo control for changes required September 2021.
• Device Editor: Show actual HomeKit device name in device listings.
• Device Editor: Display room in list when All Devices is selected.
• Device Editor: Allow editing Serial Numbers in Advanced settings. Generally these should not be edited, but can be useful if a device is added manually and needs that information.
• Code Set Editor: Improved code editing field auto-expands as more lines are needed. Monospaced font. Preserves formatting.
• Activity Panel: Room selector menu now uses the room bubble selector rather than a flat menu.
• Room Bubbles now present a home icon at the top to navigate to the Dashboard.
• Unanswered remote incoming Intercomm calls now timeout after 30 seconds.
• Plex fixes for rare scenarios.
• Revised subscription offerings. Existing subscriptions are unchanged.
• Annual minimum iOS version update advanced to 14.5. macOS minimum is now 12.0.

TLDR Summary

• V6 is a new $9.99 app with the original name Roomie Remote.
• Switching apps ensures that the sweeping changes do not disrupt existing installs via autoupdate.
• V5 subscriptions also license V6 at the same device level.
• V6 eliminates Simple Hub, replaced with zero-setup iCloud synchronization.
• HomeKit accessories no longer count against subscribed devices.
• V6.2 includes many new features such as Harmony Synchronization, greatly improved Siri and Shortcuts support, playback of recorded Apple TV voice commands, and iOS 13 support including Dark Mode.

Background

V6 returns to the end-user path we started on in 2011 as well as our original name Roomie Remote. In late 2015, we adopted the name Simple Control for version 4 (the company name never changed.) New people led a push into the custom integrator market. We were created as a disruptive entity – a low-priced product with high-end functionality easy enough for most end-users to configure, and easy to obtain via the App Store. Our model didn’t match the custom integrator market that requires significant price margin to support an array of middle-people. It thrives on complexity which is the basis for consulting hours, and requires a multi-tier distribution network. While great things can come from that system, the model was incompatible with the DNA of Roomie even with great people with expertise in that area leading it.

Recognizing that path didn’t work precipitated a dramatic directional shift. Many major changes in the core of the product from the last 5 years have been re-architected in this release. Simple Hub is gone. The specific implementations of user accounts, centrally-managed access control, remote access, and many other features that did not apply to our DIY core market are gone. The software is much simpler for users. These dramatic changes meant it was impossible to release V6 as an autoupdate to V5 to ensure we didn’t obliterate perfectly functional installations. V6 is a paid upgrade. We were a paid app with subscription until 2015, and we’ve returned to that model with several improvements. Subscription pricing has been reduced, and by no longer counting HomeKit accessories the device count upward pressure was generally reduced as well.

The vision of V6 is “how would Roomie work today had we never diverted to the custom install market in 2015?” A key part of that is embracing Apple platforms as our exclusive platforms. This allows us the freedom to take full advantage of Apple’s tools. Every aspect of the software and business has been re-evaluated to determine where we should do more, and what didn’t work that should be eliminated.

Cloud Synchronization

Your Roomie installations now synchronize automatically via iCloud. There is nothing to setup, and no hub to maintain. Devices do not have to be online at the same time. It just works, better than ever. Configurations can be shared with others via iCloud. Synchronization works both locally and remotely even across multiple homes at the same time.

Subscriptions

We’re introducing a perpetual license option for the first time. If you prefer non-subscription purchases, we now offer an Unlimited Perpetual option for the life of this app. Historically, we have migrated to a new app to avoid obliterating user installations with sweeping changes (such as this release) every 5 years or so. This new app will be the only Roomie app for many years – possibly we won’t need to change again. Selecting the Unlimited Perpetual option enables you to use it as long as the app works on the hardware you’re using. Standard cadence increases our iOS requirement by one major version per year. This release requires iOS 12.4.

Simple Service subscriptions from V5 carry forward to this release at the same device level. If you have one, Restore Purchases in the old app to make sure the new app sees it. Simple Control V5 or Simple Control Home V4.5 must be installed on the same device to share a subscription from them. Start a new subscription in V6 before your next renewal so that you don’t need to keep the old app. Turn off Background App Refresh in Apple’s Settings app for the old app if you need to leave that app on your device to refresh a renewal.

Privacy

Privacy was a huge driving force for this release. In the past, some features required user configurations stored on our servers in an encrypted form. Whether it was Simple Service Backup, Remote Access, or others, we wanted to make sure that no aspect of a user configuration passed through us going forward. This release takes us completely out of the loop. Configurations are never sent to any of our servers in any form.

We also used to use a common crash report tracker called Crashlytics/Fabric. A year or so ago, it was bought by Google, so we didn’t feel comfortable continuing to use it. We now use only the built-in Apple analytics. While Apple’s crash reporting tools are slow usually taking at least a day to present crash reports whereas Crashlytics would notify us in seconds of unusual crash activity, we believe everyone is better off without Google trackers of this type and we will still get the data needed via the opt-in Apple services.

Major New Features

This release contains numerous new features including:

• Cloud Synchronization: How to setup Simple Hub was a major issue for our users, and even when successful could be brittle. We are pleased to present this new architecture that is much simpler, faster, and better in every way. We now have multiple levels of synchronization resulting in by far the fastest and most reliable synchronization we’ve had. This has always been an area of specialization for us, and to be able to eliminate all of the complexity of Simple Hub while retaining the related functionality and improving upon it was a stretch goal that is clearly the highlight of this release.
• Harmony Synchronization: [Added V6.1, 3/5/20] Automatic discovery and bi-directional current activity synchronization with Harmony Hubs. Add a Harmony Hub to the room in which it belongs, make sure your Activities share the same names, restart your Primary, everything else is automatic. This feature requires an always-on Primary Controller for Roomie, and a Hub-based Harmony product such as Elite, Companion, or Pro.
• macOS Platform Support: [Updated V6.1, 3/5/20] The entire app is now available for macOS 10.15 Catalina! Note that Apple has not yet implemented a few features in Catalina. Impacted features include: HomeKit, SiriKit, Sharing, Location, and 1Password integration. We anticipate Apple adding some of those in the future. In most cases, the downside is minimal. You can configure Siri Voice on iOS, there is almost no need to configure that on macOS. You can share configurations on iOS, and that works with macOS since it’s all cloud-based and Catalina does have Cloud Synchronization. Not being able to control HomeKit is a mysterious omission given that Apple felt the Home app was so important that it was part of Mojave, but presumably some technical problem prevented actual HomeKit support for Catalina. Despite the ‘Home’ app existing in Catalina, HomeKit itself is completely absent. That issue is 100% on Apple’s side and can be flipped on for us in seconds once Apple fixes it. Other than those caveats, it is a beautiful platform that we are excited to add. For A/V control, the lack of HomeKit is irrelevant so for most users we believe this release should meet their needs. Purchasing the base macOS app is separate from the iOS app, but subscriptions are shared. Subscriptions can be purchased in either the iOS or macOS app, but the effect of the subscriptions is identical. Here is a direct link to the macOS version of the app. The new macOS app can serve as a Primary Controller.
• Apple TV Voice Command Playback: Automate launching apps and many other actions on Apple TV 4 using recorded voice commands. Just add the new .VOICE COMMAND and record a command in an Activity to playback when you start an Activity or from a button on your Action Panel.
• Siri Shortcuts: Significant improvements were made by Apple to Siri Shortcuts, and we have added support for them. You may now add Activities and Commands with parameterized options in the Shortcuts app directly – even with no prior suggestions. Also, a huge step forward, it is no longer necessary to pre-record each Siri command you want to use. iOS 13 is required for these improvements.
• Dark Mode: It looks awesome on OLED devices like the iPhone X.
• PlayStation 4 and Xbox One S Controllers: The popular game controllers used by these systems may now be used as hard button remotes including control over volume, mute, playback, directional pad, and system off. iOS 13 is required to use them.
• Sony XBR/BRAVIA Pro TV IP Control: High-end models from recent years such as the A9G this year use a new control protocol. These are now fully supported including power control, app guide, and app launching.
• Channel Guide: [Added V6.1, 3/5/20] Services have been replaced in this release with a new provider due to shutdown of the old provider. You will need to create new guides under Settings->Channel Guides. There are some minor unavoidable country variations, but also numerous new countries were added. See the Knowledge Base on the website for up to date country level detail.
• Video Camera Object Detection: [Added V6.2, 4/9/20] RTSP cameras can now detect most common objects like people, cars, or buses. Objects are outlined. This feature is experimental. Voice notifications will occur for any person or bus while all object types are identified on screen. This defaults to off and must be turned on for each camera in the Advanced settings of the camera in Devices. Note that this feature requires a modern iOS device (minimum A12 CPU) to perform at an acceptable level.
• Sonos Cloud Control: [Added V6.2, 4/9/20] We now support two methods for Sonos speaker control. Our original direct LAN control method continues to work well and supports unique features like media browsing. The new cloud control method introduced in this release offers essentially all of the LAN functionality without media browsing. While this is the current parity with other industry software and is all that Sonos officially offers, we will continue to offer both methods for as long as the LAN method continues to work. We want to make sure we offer our users a known-certified control method going forward for Sonos rather than the method we have used for many years that has been extensively refined and is loved by many. We encourage using the original method if it suits you while new users may want to start with the new Cloud Service method. The new method does have some unique functionality as well including the new .PLAYER ANNOUNCE command that allows playing arbitrary URLs for MP3 files on your Sonos speaker.
• New Automation Interface: One of the stragglers from the sweeping interface updates of V5 was the Triggers/Automation system. This has now been completely updated.
• New Guide Editing Interface: [Added V6.1, 3/5/20] The guide editing interface has been completely replaced.
• Grid Size: Action Panel Design editor now provides a selection to change the layout density of buttons.
• Receiver Input and Mode are displayed directly in the volume dial.
• Yamaha MusicCast receivers and speakers now dynamically retrieve and offer selection for sound modes.
• Samsung 2014/2015 TV models: [Added V6.1 3/5/20] Fixes for IP control.
• Arlo Camera support updated for extensive changes and rebranding.
• Ring Doorbells: [Added V6.1 3/5/20] Added Device option to monitor doorbells. If available, snapshots fade into view when doorbell is tapped, tapping snapshots opens Ring app. Global snapshot display across all Roomie clients. Defaults to off, turned on in the Ring device editor. Requires a Primary Controller. Note that battery-powered Ring doorbells rarely send snapshots, so the snapshots are more useful with wired units. Also added two-factor authentication support for Ring.

Changed or Deprecated Features

• Simple Hub: Software re-architected so that this is no longer needed. Some features such as Hub Relay and Trigger execution require at least one device online. If you need to execute Triggers based on events, or times, you will need one device online at all times. At any given time, any active device will play the role of the Primary Controller for purposes of Relay or Triggers. By default, this is determined dynamically based on uptime. You may also specify a device that should always be preferred as your Primary in the Homes panel. If your configuration uses specific devices such as Honeywell Wi-Fi thermostat control (non-HomeKit), specifying a dedicated Primary is required. Otherwise, users can forget about this whole topic.
• Remote Access: This feature never belonged in the product. It could be convenient to access your home network devices without a VPN, but required a large array of functionality on our side that made the product much more complex. This problem today is better solved via VPN software with the time to dedicate to this issue that was at best tertiary for us. We recommend OpenVPN, but of course there are many good VPN solutions. WireGuard is also worth a look. Using a dedicated solution for the small number of users that wanted this is much better from a security perspective, and it is desirable to have fewer things opening ports on your router. Back when we designed Remote Access, VPN for iOS was almost non-existent. Since then, Apple added third-party entitlements that have led to a plethora of good options for the platform. A VPN has always been the correct solution to this problem, results in better performance and security, and there are numerous solutions mature in the market. In particular, this is visible when loading a video camera remotely that no longer goes through our video transcoding and is thus invariably higher quality. So we have removed this feature and added notifications when appropriate to connect your VPN. Each Home is now associated with a Wi-Fi SSID to assist in distinguishing that. You will need to set that manually the first time for any existing home.
  • Important Note: It is trendy of late to mis-use the term “VPN” for products that simply obscure your traffic source by re-routing through a different IP Address, creating a weak form of point to point privacy. Don’t confuse real VPNs with that. To replicate the Remote Access feature, you want an actual VPN product like OpenVPN that creates a VPN tunnel from your iOS device endpoint to your home network. Both OpenVPN and WireGuard do exactly that.
• Multihome (Locations, Multiple Users, Permissions): Replaced by the new cloud sharing support. The Homes panel now provides the ability to create multiple homes and share each home with others – including the ability to designate a user as read-only. These features are also no longer related to the type of subscription directly. Sharing can be performed via any subscription. The 8 and 24 subscription levels are limited to 1 Home.
• Alexa Control: Of course, Alexa Control is still part of the product. It’s just slightly different in how you turn it on. Alexa does not require a Hub at a specific IP Address, so our two Alexa Skills carry forward with no changes. (Note that the skills are still titled “Simple Control” at the moment.) A new set of options activates Alexa Control. If you have already enabled the skills in the Alexa app, just turn on Alexa Control in V6 and Sign In from the Always-on Services panel in Settings. Make sure at least one of your devices is active at any given time – this can be either an iOS device or macOS Catalina running Roomie. Alexa is the primary reason that the old Simple Control login accounts exist. If you do not use Alexa, there is no reason to login, so we have removed the login alert at startup. Note that our enhanced Siri support on iOS 13 in this release means you may not need the Alexa skills anymore. Nothing needs to be running to use our Siri support.
• External Commands: V5 allowed Simple Hub to act as a server on a fixed IP Address for certain external integration most notably SmartThings. Via local network commands, it is possible for a SmartThings motion detector to trip and cause an Activity to execute in Roomie. This feature is now controlled per-device via the Local Network Control switch in the Always-on Services panel. Make sure to designate that device as your Preferred Controller as SmartThings expects it to remain on a fixed IP Address.
• PIN Lock: iOS Guided Access has replaced this feature with real TouchID/FaceID and system-level PIN entry none of which existed when we added this feature, but has now obviated the need for it.
• iBeacon Room Detection: When Apple introduced iBeacons, we quickly added support. We thought it was a promising idea, and that it would be improved over time with greater accuracy. We thought Apple would introduce their own iBeacons, or at least introduce whatever things they felt were required to enable location internal to a home. After many years, it is time to remove this feature until such time as Apple moves the hardware level forward. Early signs in the iPhone 11 with the U1 chip indicate such a time may yet come to pass. iBeacons didn’t work perfectly, they caused support issues, the only beacons were from third parties, and the accuracy was very difficult to tune correctly. We look forward to re-introducing this feature one day when these factors improve.
• watchOS App Removed: Creating this app was a labor of love, but it was infrequently used. For now, we have removed it. We hope that future improvements in watchOS will improve the platform. Even in watchOS 6, the complete absence of standard network communication APIs continues to hold back the platform for controlling local devices which forced us to relay everything through the phone resulting in a laggy experience. Should this change in the future, we will certainly re-evaluate.
• tvOS App Added: [Updated V6.1, 3/5/20] The tvOS platform has returned! Whether you want to use an Apple TV as a Primary Controller, or view your video cameras, or watch Live TV with HDHomeRun, the new tvOS app for Roomie Remote is now available free with purchase of the iOS platform. Via the new iCloud Synchronization, there is no longer any need to pair with a Simple Hub, your configuration automatically appears.
• Google Nest Support: This is not actually a change in the software, but rather a reminder that Google Nest disabled all access by anything other than the Google Nest app as of August 31, 2019 (some users are grandfathered if you already set it up). Even if it still works for you, the remaining thread is brittle and will break forever at the accidental acceptance to update your Nest account. If you still use Nest, we strongly recommend Ecobee and Honeywell as excellent alternatives, or the many HomeKit thermostats. The idea of removing a great API without any equivalent replacement as a last ditch effort to force market position for a voice assistant is such a breathtakingly questionable move that one might safely assume the Nest products are unlikely to be a good choice going forward. Despite marketing fluff on the Google website, there is no replacement API. [Updated 3/5/20] For those who absolutely need Nest support now, the best option at the moment is to setup Homebridge Nest which is compatible with Roomie. Note the pairing and setup process can be extremely complex and is obviously not certified by Nest and they could break that at any time.

Support

Technical Support constrains incoming tickets to bug reports. For a small company without dedicated support personnel, limitless free AV consultation is not sustainable, and that has definitely been how our support has been used at times. It is important to set expectations appropriately. For clarity, these are the incoming support tracks:

• Customer service for purchases: Apple App Store
• Bug Reports: Direct submission via app
• Questions/Advice: forum.roomieremote.com (user to user discussion)
• Users requiring AV consultation or assistance are encouraged to seek the help of local installers. Our bug report submission system does not provide generalized AV or Home control support.

The journey to reimagine the user experience of Roomie Remote is nearly complete. Action Panel Editing has arrived. This release matures the new V5 interface focusing on customization and improvements based on user feedback. It brings much tighter integration of home devices. V5 introduced HomeKit support, and V5.5 improves key parts of the app to make any home device including those from HomeKit easier to use and integrate.

V5.5 represents the last major step of the V5 transition – all users should migrate to this release. Legacy Remote Designs are finally gone and replaced by significantly better Action Panel customization. Give yourself time to rebuild any Legacy Remote Designs as customized Action Panels. Anyone building new customizations should consider what you were doing prior to simply building it again. A primary reason people customized Remote Designs in the past is obviated by changes in the architecture of the app. The most common reason for building Remote Designs was to create a panel of controls for home devices like lights. The Homebar now provides exactly that for most home devices without the need to spend any time on customization.

There will always be legitimate reasons for customization. For instance, particular devices treat different buttons as critical based on geographic market. In one market, the Info button may be the most important button, and in another the same device will use Guide as the most important. Moving buttons to the ideal location is one of the best reasons to customize an Action Panel. Migrate your usage of home devices to the Homebar and the new Homebar Scenes feature while your new customizations instead focus on refining your Action Panels to control the actual devices better.

Video cameras are again taken to a new level in 5.5 with the introduction of experimental Netgear Arlo Camera support. Support for the ONVIF standard also now makes discovery and setup of new cameras much simpler. With our unmatched support for RTSP, ONVIF, HomeKit cameras, NestCam, and now even Arlo, there is no other app even close to bringing together everything like we do.

As with any major release, there are terminology changes and usage changes that may require tweaks to your configuration. Understanding the new Activity types is the first step. See below for details on all of the changes, and we hope you enjoy the much anticipated addition of Action Panel Editing and the many other improvements in this release. Thank you.

Action Panel Editing

Customization for Action Panels is here! Action Panels are customized from within the new Activity Editor. Action Panels are composed of modules based on each device referenced by the Activity. Each module can be customized. Entirely custom modules can also be added. Any button can have any number of commands added to it, or even open URLs, launch other Activities, and more.

Legacy Remote Designs can be re-created in the new editor. Make sure to consider when re-creating such customizations whether the customization is needed in the new app. Whereas years ago there may have been a need for custom panels to control home devices, now such needs are largely obviated by the Homebar.

New Activity Editor

Completely redesigned Activities editor greatly simplifying eliminating old cruft and automating old options. All Activities are automatically migrated. Some old activities may have options that need to be fixed manually, warnings explaining how to fix them will be presented in such cases.

Some Activities related terminology has changed. Activities now have 4 well-defined types:

• Media Activity: Traditional activity that opens an Action Panel and changes the current activity for the room. Has Start and/or Stop commands.
• Inline Activity: Any activity that does not change the current activity for the room. Can open an Action Panel if needed. Has Start commands. There are 3 variations of Inline activity:
  1. Simple: Start commands with no Action Panel. Used to execute commands as needed.
  2. Toggle: Has both Start and Stop commands with no Action Panel, tracks its own state.
  3. Popup: Start commands with Action Panel. Used to open an Action Panel when you don’t want to change the current activity for the room.
• Homebar Scene: New Activity type that can exist in both its room and the Homebar categories for the devices it controls. Many activities that were previously Toggle activities should be converted to Homebar Scenes to benefit from live feedback state tracking if they were primarily designed to control lights, shades, locks, outlets, and home devices.
• Power Off: Stop commands only.

Many other optimizations and improvements have been made to activity configuration including:

• Toggle Activities are now implicit. Any Inline activity with Start+Stop commands is a toggle activity.
• Power Device: Old setting eliminated. Turning on/off a device added to an Activity is now automatic as part of Activity creation, reset, or adding a device.
• Reset on System Off option on toggle activities has been eliminated. To reset a Toggle Activity from a System Off activity, stop the toggle activity in the System Off Activity’s commands.
• Run from Simple Hub is now automatic for any Activity that requires more than 2 seconds to execute.
• Kodi Device setting is now automatic.
• Plex Media Server setting is now automatic.
• Associating an iTunes Media Guide with the old Apple TV 3 removed.

Homebar Scenes

New Activity type consolidates home-related devices (lights, shades, locks, switches, fans) into a Scene. The “on” state of the Scene is defined by the start commands. For instance, 4 lights set to 50% and 1 shade at 100% open is a Scene definition. It is on when all 5 of those are an exact match, and otherwise off. Toggling the Scene changes all contained devices via the start/stop command sequence of the Activity. Long-pressing a Scene from the room’s Activity panel will reverse the command sequence sent. Homebar Scenes can be accessed from any Homebar category for the devices it controls, and optionally can also display with its live status in the Room’s activity list.

Auto Thermostats

Thermostats in an automatic heat/cool mode now use a much improved interface.

Additional Improvements

• Homebar Sensors + Fans: New panels for sensors from HomeKit accessories including temperature, motion, smoke, contact, leak, humidity, and carbon monoxide. Fans also now have a new Homebar category.
• Netgear Arlo Cameras: Streaming now provided as an experimental feature added as a new Cloud Service.
• ONVIF Cameras: Automatic discovery and configuration of many additional cameras via support for the ONVIF camera standard.
• Activity Order: Activities may now be ordered in the Activity Editor. Dashboard orders via usage analytics.
• Room Button: Action Panels now show a room button if opened from a room.
• Navigation: Side swipes now navigate between all Action Panels and Dashboard.
• System Off Activities consolidated into a menu, those after the first are now accessed as additional items from the room’s System Off menu.
• iOS Guided Access is now an automatic configuration hard lock. Explicitly locking from a separate device is no longer needed if using Guided Access.
• Hide from Voice Control options for Rooms, Devices, and Activities are now consolidated into one section in Settings.
• Samsung TV 2016-2017 models now feature a media guide and direct commands to launch TV apps.
• Somfy myLink: Somfy shades are now also controlled via the myLink Wi-Fi controller. Add the device manually as Automation -> Somfy on port 44100. Enter your System ID from the Integration panel of the myLink app where requested. myLink does not provide status feedback, so Roomie Remote remembers the last state. This does mean it’s easy to get out of sync if you also use other systems to change shade state. Depending on your setup, an Inline Toggle Activity may be the best method, or if you remove other control methods they work great from the Homebar.
• Vizio TVs discovery updated for latest firmware changes.
• Roku TVs are now auto-discovered and properly matched.
• Universal Devices ISY manifest entries can now be renamed.
• Indigo dimmers now properly recognized.
• Dashboard Watch Live TV button now shows actual Live TV periodically updated on the most recent channel for HDHomeRun.
• Apple TV: YouTube gesture navigation and issues with other specific apps like DirecTV Now fixed. Many more Apple TV improvements.
• Apple TV: Fixed commands in System Off activities such as long press to sleep.
• Graphics Update: New graphics and icon selection interface.
• Tuning a channel on HDHomeRun now supported for countries that do not have guides/channel listings.
• Custom images for Activities can now be imported from your Photo Library. Make sure the original format of the image when added to your Photo Library is PNG to preserve transparency.
• Configurations are updated by this release and many features are not supported by older releases. Ensure all platforms and devices are on the latest release. The old Simple Hub appliance remains compatible modulo the features it does not support from V5 such as Remote Video, Picture-in-Picture, HomeKit, and Homebar Scenes from V5.5.
• Legacy Remote Designs were removed as announced in 2017 now that Action Panel Editing has replaced them.

What’s New, What’s Changed, Migration Tips

Roomie Remote 5 is now available. It’s a complete revamp of the original app. When I launched Roomie Remote over 6 years ago in 2011, the iPad was only a year old. Devices were very different from what they are now. It’s fun to go back and look at the original app:
Way Back Machine – Roomie Remote 2011

It looks even more dated than I remember now. In late 2013, Apple launched iOS 7 which was the only notable event requiring a rework of the interface. That cycle was driven by urgency and conformance as Apple gave developers only a Summer to update their apps – not by the needs of the apps themselves. We had to make everything “more flat”, and our resources were more limited back then. Over time, the UI has certainly improved a great deal, but UI is something that often needs to be considered in a larger context of the whole experience. To improve just this little piece or that is nice, but nothing like a real reimagining of the interface.

In today’s frantic weekly release patterns where some apps like Facebook don’t even bother listing what they changed, most apps never seriously change. A new feature comes here and there, but a truly major rethink of an app is rare. It’s more likely that a brand new competitor will come along than a given app will halt their release cadence to truly consider everything they have learned and re-evaluate the design of the app. In large part, that’s because it will take years to do that properly, and who has that kind of time in a quarter driven business environment.

Stepping back to when we started to conceive of V5: in 2014, this space was wide open. All the big players were locked in their release cycles – there wouldn’t be any real innovation there. On one side, there were a number of stale AV control products. On the other, there was an emerging set of home control products that were complex, expensive to implement, and mysteriously ignored the fact that, for most people, “home control” meant the AV devices that already populated their home. That first wave of home control products including the original HomeKit is widely seen as a failure now.

As time moved on, the home control side of things moved forward and has improved. I think there’s still a fair amount to go before home control reaches maturity and is ready for mass adoption. The overlap of “people who use smartphones” with “people who use home control” has to be relatively small still. Meanwhile, AV control has languished in limbo, fighting between dueling forces of cord cutting, people who torture themselves by watching everything on mobile devices, and the ongoing migration from the simplicity of 13 channels, an antenna, and a TV Guide into a world of near-infinite channels on countless devices from countless providers.

AV control is emerging from a dark time as the transition to IP control is finally at almost total penetration, home control is just starting to come out of its shell, and yet we still find that basically every product out there ignores the elephant in the room – home control has rarely heard of your AV products, and AV control has poor awareness of your home.

We don’t see that line. Not only is there no line, but there is a strong need to integrate AV and home control. That was a key driver behind Version 5. We wanted to rethink the AV Control UI given everything we had learned going all the way back to Roomie Remote and upgrade home control to a first class citizen.

The Hub

Along with that, we’ve had some business model updates. Roomie Remote was targeted at individual users. In 2014, we started getting some small amounts of financing to explore a retail presence. Part of that was introducing a Simple Hub appliance. That path just didn’t work well. With V5, we’re now fully focused back on the direct market where we began. Simple Hub’s functionality has been expanded, but we will not sell an actual physical Hub.

The Hub was expensive. That confused some of our traditional customer base. Some thought that was now the only way to use the product when in fact it was just one of many options. Most important for me though were the technical issues. Hardware is evolving so fast these days that a proprietary Hub with cutting edge tech is difficult to maintain and largely redundant with devices users already have. A great example of this is the various competitors selling hardware touch panels. There is no comparison between a real iPad and any third party control touch panel. The iPad wins hands down every direction. Yet, such products often cost even more than an iPad because they’re proprietary! That was not a business I wanted to be in. Apple will always make the better touch panel. We want to run on the best devices.

Meanwhile, there was a period where many vendors decided it was a great idea to make a Hub (including us). Now in the last year we see the industry retreat from that. SmartThings for instance is now a USB Stick for Samsung TVs or nVidia Shield. Philips Hue can now be controlled directly by Alexa without a Hue hub. The idea that every major vendor will have their own Hub is comical. For us, running on your existing iOS, tvOS, or macOS devices is far better from every perspective. Similarly, voice control may never be better than the major vendors (Amazon, Apple, Google) given the amount of innovation and cloud infrastructure being poured into that area. Alexa is the clear leader there right now, and even a major player like Sonos realizes that nobody should be reinventing that wheel. We made a wise decision not to develop our own voice control and instead throw our lot in with Alexa. Selling hubs or voice control hardware is silly in this era. So we have eliminated the hardware, but the architecture is the same and the experience is significantly better. Of course, Simple Blasters are unaffected by this and remain a core product.

In addition, during the course of V5 development, we wanted to pursue several features that were going to push or break the barriers of proprietary hardware. First, we added HomeKit support as a first class feature. HomeKit is now a good substrate for home control, but is totally closed outside of the iOS/tvOS world. Not even macOS supports HomeKit. The old appliance Hub simply couldn’t support it.

We added remote video transcoding that allows you to watch your video cameras or even live TV remotely. That feature requires a lot of processing horsepower that the old Hub just couldn’t handle. However, iOS/tvOS devices have built-in hardware that handles such encoding extremely well. Finally, we added Hub Relay that consolidates devices that used to be controlled independently from each device onto the Hub itself. For instance, Denon Receivers often had issues with control from more than one device. Hub Relay eliminates those issues.

These 3 features are now available for the iOS and tvOS hubs (macOS hub supports all but HomeKit – note that macOS video transcoding is not quite as amazing as iOS/tvOS but still acceptable). The old appliance hub remains compatible and has been updated to support V5. We recommend in your medium/long term planning to switch your dedicated hub device over to a modern iPad in Guided Access mode that doubles as your primary control device (which many users already have in a living room environment) ideally even with an USB Lightning Adapter connected to a USB Ethernet adapter for maximum network reliability, or a dedicated Apple TV 4 that is much cheaper than our previous Hub anyway. Our new Apple TV app Simple Control TV is a Universal Purchase which means by downloading Simple Control 5, you automatically have the Apple TV app as well.

The hub software is free to download. iOS and tvOS are part of the same bundled app on the App Store, and macOS.

Hub software must be upgraded for compatibility with V5. The appliance has been upgraded automatically.

The Apps

The previous 4 apps (Home, System, Legacy, One) have been consolidated to a single app. Shortly after release of V5, the old apps will be removed from the App Store so that we have just the new app. The confusion created by the app split was not worth the benefit. The new app is free, but supports 0 devices to start. Activating the Simple Service with Free Trial turns on everything. That’s it. The one nuance is the functionality that used to be called the Simple Multihome License is now part of the top level of subscription called the Simple Service Unlimited, which also has a Free Trial. There’s nothing else to buy.

I’m really pleased with how much we’ve been able to simplify purchasing. As we return our full focus to the App Store, one of the top goals I had was simply making sure everyone could easily understand the cost. The Simple Service is now the only thing anyone needs. Because we’ve also migrated to Apple’s new subscription improvements, it is easy for users to migrate between subscription levels as well. If someone originally buys Simple Service 10, they can upgrade later pro-rated to Simple Service 30 very easily.

The Service

Transitioning Simple Service from any of our previous apps is automatic. Because subscriptions are tied to specific apps by the App Store, we recommend transitioning your subscription to this new app at your convenience by disabling auto-renew for the old app and subscribing in the new app. If you do have a Simple Service subscription (not to be confused with the 2013 Roomie Service) from Legacy or Home, use the Restore Purchases button in the old app to ensure your subscription is up to date and that will reflect in the new app. If your subscription was created on our website, you don’t need to do anything. It will just work in all of the apps. This release also treats subscription levels differently.

For two reasons, we wanted to upgrade most subscriptions automatically. First, some number of users will be migrating from either Legacy or Home. Those users initially bought an app that granted them 3 devices as a base level. We didn’t want those users to feel like they would be getting a device count downgrade as the new app uses 0 as its base. Second, the upward pressure on device counts will be increased for some users if they adopt HomeKit, so we wanted to make higher devices counts more accessible to everyone. The new Simple Service Unlimited for the first time takes that all the way by removing the device count and adding user permissions, guest access, and multiple home control.

Simple Service purchased in-app, for this new app only, is now shared across your Simple Control account which is connected to your configuration. This eliminates the need going forward to purchase subscriptions from our website to handle sharing a family subscription. Subscriptions should now be purchased in-app and will no longer be available via our website. Existing subscriptions started in the past via our website are unaffected. Apple has done such a marvelous job at allowing subscription upgrades and other improvements that we feel it’s the best way to start a new subscription today.

The Action Panel

The core of the Roomie Remote experience was AV control. Presenting a panel with the correct controls the user needs for each device in the correct order, at the correct size, resizing for every device resolution, gesture control, and so many other considerations – this is the heart of the redesign.

We also had to consider a more modern user interface. The concepts introduced by iOS 7 were never fully addressed, and yet iOS 7’s style now feels dated. The old Virtual Remote was very difficult to resize. If you liked small fonts and small buttons in dense array of controls, it was great. If you didn’t, it was problematic. There is some degree of usability and some degree of fashion associated with UI, and the trick is to have both of them meet at just the right point.

The new Action Panel presents most things on a larger scale, especially on iPad. The iPad scale now lends itself well to wallmount or table usage which looked silly at the small size of V4.

In the old design, a number of features had been added on over time without reconsidering the design to put them in the right place. Given that we were forging new ground in our early releases, it was not always clear where we would end up. As features were added such as DVR access, numerous buttons needed to surface for that content. Similarly, we found that over 80% of edits to remote designs were for the same basic things. Adding a single button that skipped forward 6 times for instance was so common that we simply add it by default now.

Remote Design Editing, for now, is restricted to Legacy Virtual Remotes. The exact same remote you may have painstakingly designed in a prior release will still work just like it was as long as you turn on the “Force Legacy Virtual Remote” option for the associated Activity. In many cases, you may find you no longer need such customizations especially if they were related to home control devices now better accessed via the Home Bar. We will later introduce an Action Panel Editing feature. For now, if Remote Design Editing is important to you, exactly the same Virtual Remotes from V4 remain present. Legacy Virtual Remotes and Remote Designs will be removed in a future release when Action Panel Editing replaces them. It’s important during this phase for us to get feedback on anything missing from the default Action Panels. While Action Panel Editing is coming, it’s important to make sure the default controls provided are ideal.

Action Panels now automatically include a tray of controls for every device referenced in the activity. We found that users would add manual remotes to their activity screens for many devices to correct unexpected issues, so now we just add them automatically at the bottom of the Action Panel which also reduces clutter on the activity screen.

The Home Bar

The original Roomie Remote relied heavily on remote design editing features. As everything was evolving so quickly, it was difficult to plant a stake in the ground and say this is how the UI should work. There was a strong need to let users define buttons and set things up that we didn’t even know about or envision. Largely, such things turned out to be home control related. Users created buttons to open light control panels and perform other operations related to things outside their AV control.

While all of those things were valid at the time, they often didn’t end up as a really good interface for the devices the users were trying to control. They got the job done without doing the job well. The Home Bar replaces the vast majority of what previously required extensive customization. All of a user’s home control devices including thermostats, cameras, lights, locks, shades, switches, garage doors, and even volumes are accessed at any time right from the bottom of the screen.

The Home Bar provides each home device with the appropriate interface for its type. It works with HomeKit accessories, and traditional devices such as lights from Lutron and SmartThings, RTSP/MJPEG cameras, Honeywell/Ecobee/Nest thermostats, and many more as listed on our compatibility page.

Home Bar blends together the best of the home control world regardless of the underlying control. With HomeKit fully integrated, we’re offering something unique in the broader AV and home control industry where products often are built on proprietary platforms thus preventing them from using HomeKit. We are able to bring together the best home control devices regardless of protocol/platform.

Video

An enormous amount of new functionality around video is part of the new release. In addition to normal video camera support for RTSP, MJPEG, and H.264, we now support HomeKit cameras. All of these different types of cameras blend seamlessly into the Home Bar’s camera panel.

When we added Remote Access in V4.5, we frequently heard from users that they wanted to view their video cameras remotely, so we have added Remote Video. That’s a lot harder than it sounds. Video cameras come in all kinds of formats, and usually are not encoded for a bandwidth that is friendly outside the local network. A system needs to exist to adapt the video dynamically to the actual bandwidth, and that system is not part of modern video cameras.

iOS and tvOS have amazing video encoding hardware. We’ve been able to take advantage of that to decode the video locally and then re-encode it to fit the appropriate bandwidth. The capabilities vary by iOS and tvOS model, but it’s safe to say that with a nice iPhone/iPad or an Apple TV 4K, you can view many video streams remotely at the same time. We’ve been working on this tuning for over a year and now feel it’s ready for prime time. We’ve also added audio support for video cameras.

Using similar technology, we’ve been able to transcode video camera streams to support iPad Picture-in-Picture (compatible with iPad Air, iPad Pro, iPad Mini 2 +). View your door camera, turn on PiP, and then leave it in the corner of your screen while you use other apps.

Or, you can even watch live TV while you use other apps. We’ve added support for HDHomeRun devices. The HDHomeRun is available in both CableCard and antenna models. With Simple Control, we can tune those live channels right on your iOS device and then watch the channel in PiP mode while you use other apps.

Support for new types of cameras and even live TV extends fully to Simple Control TV on the Apple TV. So you can now watch live TV on your Apple TV and monitor your cameras, and if you dedicate that Apple TV, it can also perform as your hub.

Activities and Dashboard

The Activities screen is dramatically re-imagined in V5.

Activities are now ordered by recency of use automatically. As you use an activity less, it floats to the bottom of the list. Toggle activities, and any activity without a specific device assigned are now separately listed either below the main activities, or on the right in Landscape mode.

All Activities are eligible (unless you exclude them) for the Dashboard. When you select “Simple Home” from the top of the room list menu, or if you tap the Home icon at the upper left of an Action Panel, you will be on the Dashboard. All activities that are currently on will be shown here. If there is room, recently used activities that are not on will also be shown. It’s a great page to see what’s currently going on in the home. On iPad, a large time display is provided here optimized for wall-mount and table top environments.

Legacy Remote Designs are still available until the future release of Action Panel Editing. Until then, if you need to access a previous Remote Design, edit the Activity to turn on Force Legacy Virtual Remote.

For those migrating from an older release, here are some usage tips first to help migrate. To edit an Activity, first make sure you’re not on the Dashboard (“Simple Home”) where all Activities are non-editable. Select a room by tapping the name at the top of the screen if needed. Now swipe any Activity to the left to reveal the Edit and Delete options.

A cognitive difference from previous is that tapping an Activity would fully re-execute every time in the old release. This was problematic especially for certain devices that didn’t expect to receive the same command multiple times. If an Activity is the current Activity, tapping it will now open its panel, but not re-execute the commands. If you want to perform the old behavior and fully re-execute an Activity, just long press on it.

Widget

The original widget simply provided a subset of an existing Virtual Remote in the widget panel. There was no concept of Rooms or Activities, and no feedback.

The new widget is a complete re-implementation from scratch. We’ve now integrated all the primary aspects of control including rooms, activities, and a control interface manageable in a very space constrained environment.

HomeKit

The first couple years of HomeKit were a hard sell. Very few devices supported it, and Apple took a hard line on integration policies with vendors so new devices were almost non-existent over time. Some of these policies have changed, new devices are starting to appear regularly, and the appeal of a properly-curated home control infrastructure that for the most part only Apple can provide is high. I am now a strong supporter of HomeKit in the medium to long term. I am not sure it’s reached a point of real maturity yet, but it is certainly a major contender now, and I would recommend it for many users.

Simple Control occupies a unique position among the control vendors relative to HomeKit. Because HomeKit is completely locked into iOS and tvOS (perhaps later macOS as well?), other control vendors cannot interact with HomeKit. We started going down the same proprietary platform road in 2014 creating a Hub platform to be a totally independent control vendor that could stand alone without Apple and have an Android client for instance. That was frankly a huge waste of time. By returning to our roots, dedicating ourselves to Apple platforms, we’re able to be the first serious control vendor that fully integrates HomeKit. We also see an increasing stream of high-quality home products coming out for HomeKit making any position that doesn’t support it look increasingly fringe. At some point it may be like not supporting Alexa – a completely untenable situation for any control vendor today. We believe in HomeKit and we occupy a unique position relative to it.

Common HomeKit accessories are controlled via the new Home Bar. Any accessory can also be used for feedback in a Legacy Remote Design or as a Trigger including thermostats, switches, cameras, garage doors, and many more. Some usage tips for HomeKit:

• Every iOS or tvOS device from which you want to control HomeKit devices must activate the Synchronize HomeKit setting, and each must be associated with the same HomeKit home(s). You may share your HomeKit home(s) among different iCloud accounts via the Home app. Any iOS device set to a non-matching HomeKit home should not be set to synchronize and will not be able to control the HomeKit devices in the configuration.
• Each HomeKit accessory is synchronized as an individual device.
• Any characteristic of a HomeKit accessory can be used as a trigger such as a HomeKit Motion Sensor turning on your TV. These triggers are configured inside Simple Control and are not related to HomeKit Automations.
• Controlling HomeKit devices via Triggers requires that your hub run on iOS or tvOS. HomeKit devices cannot be controlled via macOS or the appliance. Your hub may run on macOS or the appliance, but commands to HomeKit devices must be issued from iOS or tvOS.

Guides

When we initially set out to create V5, guides were not going to be a major focus – that was supposed to be V6. As we moved through the process, it became clear that this level of rethink couldn’t be accomplished without the new design flowing into the guide. We have turned all of our disparate guides into one integrated whole at last. You can now flip between any guide from any action panel. Flip between all your channel guides including custom channel lists for instance if you have a Kids channel list. This was a cumbersome set of screens to navigate before, but now all your channel guides and device guides are one.

One of the really nice features of the new guide is the ability to change Activities automatically to suit the selected content. For instance, you might be watching something on Plex and then select a program to play from your DISH DVR. The appropriate DISH activity will automatically be switched and the DVR program played. This required numerous steps before.

Hub Relay

Specific devices including all cloud services and various receivers are now designated as Hub Relay Devices. Such devices will always communicate through the hub rather than through each individual iOS device in your mesh. This feature reduces redundancy of requests (exponentially) and allows single-connection devices to connect to all Simple Control devices simultaneously. Coherency of feedback is greatly improved by this feature as well as network bandwidth and the fact that some devices such as an older Denon Receiver just wouldn’t work at all if multiple devices tried to connect to them before. Cloud services often have request frequency limits that users had run into before from too many devices. All of that is now solved.

iCloud Backup

The backup system has been a bit all over the place over the last 6 years, but I think we’ve finally settled on the right path – which first required that we commit to the business model changes above in order to make the right architectural decision here. We started with Dropbox backup and iTunes File Management as the backup methods early on. You’d be surprised how many users were either unwilling or unable to use Dropbox. iTunes File Management was a very obscure feature most users didn’t know how to use. Eventually we introduced Simple Service Backup which had some nice aspects but was not clean for a full restore. The recovery link process was problematic. Also, Simple Service Backup didn’t have a way to integrate custom images because users didn’t have file access.

iCloud is the perfect blend for the requirements. It’s fast, it’s already authenticated, and it provides direct file access to allow custom images and users manually swapping out to different configurations for precision restores. It’s also easily accessed via desktop systems.

All other backup methods have been dropped, so make sure to perform a final backup to Dropbox before upgrading. The layout and formats saved to Dropbox in previous releases can be restored via iCloud Restore, but is not quite the same as what is written out for a new iCloud Backup, so after you have everything migrated properly to V5 and have reviewed all of your settings and Activities, make a fresh backup from V5 as your new baseline.

Device Support

• Vizio TV models 2016 and higher are now auto-discovered and controlled with full IP control including power on most models.
• Yamaha MusicCast Speakers are now auto-discovered and controlled including a full Media Guide for all sources. Yamaha 2016+ X060 and X070 receivers are now discovered as extended MusicCast devices. Using an Activity on them shows the full Media Guide as a MusicCast device while the control provides the receiver controls as well. If you have existing Yamaha devices, you may wish to delete them and add as the new type of device.
• Denon 2016 Receivers with HEOS are now discovered as an updated receiver device and a separate HEOS device providing significantly improved functionality. If you have previously added such receivers, we recommend removing the old devices and adding it fresh.
• Onkyo 2016+ Receivers are now properly auto-discovered and controlled. If you have added such a device manually in the past, replace it with an auto-discovered device for proper control.
• Samsung 2017 TVs are properly detected and controlled.
• GoogleCast: All Googlecast devices including nVidia Shield are now discovered and supported for the +CAST POWER ON command. Such devices can now power themselves and/or a connected TV on automatically.
• Roku Media Guide revamped, now identifies active channel, is sorted, and shows channel names.
• Sony TVs: Improvements to automatic re-registration.
• LG TVs: Fixed various discovery and control issues with LG recent models.
• Plex Resume Play is now automatically offered for any content previously in progress.
• Plex Media Player now dynamically fetches Plex Media Servers from the Plex cloud. Plex Media Server devices created in prior releases can be deleted as they’re no longer needed.
• Hikvision Cameras are now auto-detected.
• Honeywell Thermostats: Improved performance with large numbers of simultaneous thermostats.
• Ecobee: Fixed temperature rounding and more. Improved robustness.
• Bose SoundTouch devices now provide a guide to select music sources.
• TiVo Mini is now controlled as a full-fledged TiVo including DVR, scrubbing, and many other features. Make sure to add as a new device. Existing devices will continue to operate as before without the new functionality.
• DirecTV compatibility with the new HS17 tower model.

Other Additions

• New Device Editor: Adding and Editing Devices has been completely redesigned providing a much improved experience, search, multi-device addition, and more.
• Any device, room, or activity can now be hidden from Alexa Smart Home discovery.
• Taptic Feedback: iPhone 7/8/X models now use the Taptic Engine instead of a long vibration when Button Vibrate is turned on.
• Keyboard Control: Added iOS keyboard control for many common Virtual Remote commands. Hold down the Command key on your keyboard to see a list of supported commands.
• Incoming Call Pause: Now supports both cellular calls and VOIP calls for apps that have adopted iOS 10 CallKit.
• Nicknames can now be designated for any device.
• Power Devices: While no commands have changed in your configuration, the setting for Power Device has been reset. If you make configuration changes that require the setting, it will need to be set beforehand.
• 1password is now integrated into the Sign In panel.
• iOS 11 Password Autofill is now integrated into the Sign In panel.
• iPhone X support.
• Some older images and custom images may be either not present or look poorly in the new design. Select new images where appropriate.
• Lightweight Design: The app is over 50% smaller thanks to replacement of bloated third-party libraries with internal development and many other optimizations.
• Recency Tracking: How recently Activities are used automatically reorders their presentation.
• Thousands of additional improvements.

Simple Control TV

The Apple TV app is now the same product integrated as a Universal Purchase – downloading one gets you the other.

• AppleTV 4K support.
• Apple TV hardware video acceleration is now applied for significantly increased performance.
• LiveTV is now provided with an HDHomeRun.
• Apple TV can now be turned into a Room iBeacon.
• HomeKit devices can be controlled via triggers.
• HomeKit cameras are now included in the Cameras panel.
• Specific cameras can now be hidden.
• Support for Dark Mode.

Deprecated Features

• iOS: Original Remote Images, Pinch Switcher, Proximity Actions, raw RTSP URLs (open cameras via the Home Bar instead), Virtual Remote Alarms (replaced by Time Triggers), Room Icons, Ad Hoc Synchronization, Simple Service Backup, Dropbox Backup, Show DHCP Warnings. Some features such as Remote Design Editing, Multiline Receiver Feedback, and macOS screen sharing are only available in the Legacy Virtual Remote interface. Action Panel Editing will be introduced in a future release for Action Panels to replace Remote Design Editing. Multiline Receiver Feedback has been superseded by newer control methods for Denon (HEOS models), Yamaha (MusicCast models) and others that are now provided as Media Guides.
• watchOS: Activities opened on watchOS must be standard Activities with an AV device configured. Legacy Virtual Remotes will not open on watchOS. However, commands associated with any activity will be executed.
• tvOS: Adding cameras. Add cameras and Live TV devices on iOS and pair with a hub. tvOS no longer has in-app purchases. The Simple Service is associated exclusively with iOS which automatically licenses both tvOS and watchOS.
• iTach: The iTach series of IR adapters (from 2010) is no longer supported for new configurations. Existing configurations with iTach-controlled devices are unchanged (grandfathered) including addition of new devices based off the same old iTach.

System Requirements

iOS 11 is required for this release. Hub software must be updated, all clients and Hub must be upgraded to V5 at once. Not all hub software supports all new features. The appliance model does not provide remote video transcoding, HomeKit Support, or Hub Relay mode. The macOS Hub cannot provide HomeKit Support per Apple not allowing HomeKit on macOS.

Simple Hub macOS requires macOS 10.12. Simple Control TV requires tvOS 11. The Apple Watch app requires watchOS 4.

Go Get It!

It’s our biggest update ever. Don’t forget to backup. Remember it’s going to take adaptation time. This is not a minor change. For environments that do not adapt well to change, you can continue using 4.5 until you’re fully comfortable with the new release. That’s one of the advantages of introducing V5 as a separate app. You can find 4.5 in your App Store Purchase History.

As you migrate, you will want to review every Activity both to make sure it’s correct and to consider whether you even need it anymore in the new world. Give it some weeks to get used to the new flow. We’d love to hear your feedback. Send it to us at support@roomieremote.com, or discuss it in our forum. We’re excited about the many opportunities to expand this new foundation going forward.