I purchased the SofaBaton U1 on 9 July 2021 and have just set it aside as unusable. I have used the remote almost daily on my home theatre without a problem. After less than six months at beginning of Dec 2021 the commands on the remote started to fail in sending the command to the relevant device. I have to repeatedly press the remote button which would then sometimes work or continue to fail. As of yesterday almost all commands failed and I have resorted to using the device manufacturer's original remote. I have read of similar failures elsewhere. Repeated button presses required until finally the unit fails completely
I have a second U1 remote and have programmed that today and so far it is operating properly but I suspect the poor build quality will result in this remote also failing. I originally selected SofaBaton to replace a Logitech Harmony universal remote with hub which had served me well for many years.
I would add a further word of warning to prospective purchasers in that when programming the U1 remote I found the bluetooth connection to my smartphone constantly failed and I would have to reconnect many times during the programming process. This failure occurred on both smartphones I possess. I also wrote macros for the remote to mirror the activities similar to the Harmony as I found this an essential requirement for my system. Unless you are familiar with writing macros it is likely that a new user will find that activity particularly challenging with the U1.
Unfortunately I cannot find a suitable alternative universal remote and am therefore using a second SofaBaton U1. I am aware that a new model, the X1, has been announced but it is unavailable at the time of writing this review. I expect products to have a useable life of more than six months and therefore caution against purchasing the U1
