Logitech is in serious trouble.
Logitech is in some serious trouble. The Caavo is so much more than a smart remote. It’s a brain for your entertainment center.
I previously had the Harmony Hub, which relayed commands to 4 devices (Xfinity, AppleTV, PlayStation, and a Kinivoo HDMI switch.) This worked, ok, but the handshaking between the switch and other devices glitched out a lot. I’d commonly have to reset the input, as I’d get a blue screen, or no picture but no sound. Harmony just can’t handle integrating multiple devices over a single output line (one HDMi going to my Soundbar, and then TV, since everything is mounted over a fireplace.)
Enter Caavo, which functions as its own HDMI switch, and by direct HDMI-CEC integration, manages everything for you. It’s absolutely seamless. No screen lag searching through the devices, as the harmony had. No handshaking issues, as the switch so not built into the hub. To say setup was easy is and understatement.
Caavo does the most brilliant thing I’ve seen. The setup screen actually pulls up the device screen from a picture in picture. Meaning, by using the device remote you can go directly to the device settings and change what’s necessary to integrate it to Caavo. The entire process is just flawless. Alexa integrations work great, and while the “tell Caavo” Conan’s feels balky, it’s a minor issue.
I have only two gripes. One, the pricing model should just include the lifetime fee. It’d still be worth it, and selling it for $40-50 depending on retailer, but then charging for most of its functionality, feels like a bait and switch. They advertised this at $180 up front, it’s still cheaper than Logitech’s newest voice remote, and better in every way.
Second, the search feature needs work. The Caavo search itself rarely finds anything useful, and I’m always relating the search to the native device (I.e. xfinity box.) this is fine as it still allows me to do voice search on xfinity, but it’d be nice if Caavo ever figured out how to search across device inputs properly.
All in all, I’d give it 6 stars if I could.
Verified purchase: YesCondition: New