BroadLink RM4 Mini IR Universal Remote Control (2.4 GHz Wi-Fi Only), Smart Home Automation Wi-Fi Infrared Blaster for TV, AC, STB Audio, Works with Alexa, Google Home, IFTTT

Very good range, easy to use, battery life

I own a Castle Serenity pellet stove which does not have a thermostat that turns it on and off. Some research led me to this product, and with a little configuration I set up the routines and my house stays within perfect temp range!1. This is RM-4 Mini. Choose this when setting up the device.2. It only works on wifi bandwidth of 2.4 ghz (what my company rep called "4G"). It will NOT work on 5 ghz "5g" wifi. Our router has both.3. Follow the directions exactly when setting up the device. If your phone can't find the Broadlink network, press and hold the reset button on the device until the light is doing quick flashes again - it exits config mode quickly.4. Follow the directions exactly to teach it the commands of your pellet stove remote, fan remote, tv, whatever. Then set up your routine and you're good to go!

I am going to upgrade this because at least part of the problem was Android and part was due to the product spec. Also, I got it working finally, so that makes me a little happier.This product did not work with Android Go. Android Go appears to be a problematic release that looks like it is part of the general set of Android versions, but isn't. But according to some, it is a stripped down version.I bought yet another Android device and that worked fine.The company is partly to blame in that the versions it supports were not better identified and/or may have been wrong at the older end of the release spectrum. I found an app that tells you exactly what range of versions and app support. According to that, the low end of the product did not reach the older device I had (4.x forgot which just now). This appears to be contrary to the indications given by the supplier. The range of lower to upper versions includes the problematic Go version. As far as I can tell by comments and experience Amazon Go should be avoided no matter what.-----OLDERSetting this thing up was confusing at best. The basic idea is that you send your home Wifi Password to the device so that it can log in to your wifi. OK, but not well explained. Trying to figure out which wifi and which password belongs where is hit and miss. What you are supposed to do at each stage is unclear. My additional issue was that he router's client isolation needed to be turned off to allow the two parts to talk to each other.Having managed to eventually get through that, it did work. I got some devices under control. So far so good. It could be a useful device. However...I wanted to get it to run on a tablet rather than the phone. It doesn't seem that any of the variants of the software work properly on tablets. The latest version won't even show up in the play store for recent versions of Android, yet the software claims it works from 4.0 upwards.The older versions do show up as compatible, but they either crash immediately, or fail to connect. The latter may be due to the different naming of the device between versions. It is not clear. I have tried different versions of the software on both old and brand new tablets without success.Perhaps the latest version should, in theory, work on more recent versions of Android. The app seems pretty generic with the real work being done by the device. The lack of compatibility with versions of Android seems odd, especially considering their claim to work on anything above 4.0.

Overall pleasantly surprised, especially with all of the negative reviews online. Broadlink (BL) recently provided a firmware update so perhaps that explains the improvements.Setup was very simple - download the BL app and follow the in-app directions. It'll ask for your phone to be connected to a 2.4Mhz channel of your router - I have Google Wifi which, like many other newer routers, will automatically assign the proper channel to each device, so I ignored the warnings and my phone (on 5Mhz channel) sent the wifi info to BL which then connected to the proper 2.4Mhz channel automatically - no issues. I also then reserved the IP address that my router assigned to BL - not sure if this is required but saw it suggested on another forum.Adding IR/RF remotes was fine - selecting the known brands (e.g. TV > Sony) didn't seem to work for any of my devices so I just used the "learning" capabilities where BL learns the remote codes from each of my remotes which worked flawlessly just takes a few mins to learn all the devices and buttons I wanted. For RF devices (if you dont need RF then get the non-pro version) I didn't know the exact 433.XX frequency but the "auto-detect" feature worked great, then similarly just "learned" my RF buttons from the remote. Once the remotes were all set up, BL "scenes" were also very simple to create allowing me to string together commands across my devices (e.g. I created a "Watch TV" scene which turns on my TV, sets the proper input on my receiver, etc) and can set timing delays between commands if necessary.The best feature (and the reason I bought this) was Google Assistant integration. Once you link your BL account from within the Google Home app, all of the BL scenes you create become available for voice command (e.g. "Hey Google, activate Watch TV"). I created a "Volume Way Up" BL scene that would increase the volume in increments of 5 to avoid having to say the volume command over and over.Another feature I found super helpful is that you can also create Google routines to run a BL scene. Just type out the Google routine's "action" to say "activate <scene name>" (e.g. "activate watch TV"). Since Google routines can have multiple actions, this will be great to be able to have google assistant voice commands control not just BL but other devices on one command. Just need to be careful that your BL scenes aren't named the same as generic Google Assistant command (e.g. turn on the lights) or else Google gets confused.The ability to control devices directly from within the Google Home app is limited to certain device types and basic commands (power on/off, etc), but this wasn't important to me (I cared about voice, and I can use the BL app for everything else).Overall- simple install and easy IR/RF remote "learning" capabilities- works great for Google Assistant voice commands for your not-smart IR and RF devices, particularly if your desired voice commands are all focused on your BL-enabled devicesSuggestions- more standard device types (e.g. "receiver" wasn't a listed type which means I had to create a custom type which then isn't available in Google Home app, though still works fine for voice commands)- more options available to control devices directly from within Google Home app (not just voice/assistant)- better suggested remotes to reduce having to "learn" them all manually-support more RF frequencies (only the 2 which seem most common are supported so check your devices before buying)