BroadLink Wi-Fi Smart Remote Hub with Sensor Cable, IR RF All in One Automation Learning Universal Remote Control, With a Mini Smart Plug, Compatible with Alexa, Google Home, IFTTT （RM4proS+SP4M)

I am surprised at the lack of documentation and/or a detailed step-by-step setup guide. The guide that comes with the unit is confusing and almost useless. I am a career techie, and it took me way too long to figure out how to get the thing up and running. I have been able to configure both of my brand-name TVs to work with the controller. I have brand-name sound bars on both of those TVs and cannot get the controller to work with either of them after 3-4 days of tinkering. So, Ive given it a rest. I found no help or detailed documentation on the Internet to get either one of the sound bars configured. Learning codes instructions just has not worked. I am good with the way the controller works with the TVs. Once the TVs were configured, integrating the features with Alexa was straight ahead... Especially for people who have configured Alexa skills previously. If/when I can get either one of the sound bars to work, I will give this unit another star.

Wanted to have it control my bed frame and ceiling fan, which both appear to be RF devices. Since it didn’t respond to the IR learning. Both appliances I don’t have manual for anymore, and both was able to detect the frequency and claimed it learned, but couldn’t actually control after. Tried many times over, couldn’t get it to work. Thought it was defective until I tried it with a tower fan and TV. Those worked just fine. However, the tower fan control lacked Alexa swivel and speed control. Only on/off, which a cheap plug variant would have handled…. Only on/off makes it pretty useless with Alexa.

For the most part this is an excellent product until you change the password on your router, then you lose all the hard work you have invested in scanning your original remotes. The universval remote app does offer the ability to backup the remotes. Unfortunately, this did not work for me using my android tablet. I did manage to backup two remotes using my android phone. Today, I added another remote but could not backup with my phone or tablet. While trying to backup remote, I get submission failed, please check network status. I find it hard to believe that Verizon and Mediacom cannot connect to Broadlinks servers reliably.

I returned mine because I was missing my return window with Amazon... its not there yet. I had issues with my smart shades after the Shade Store decided to remove the app from the Play Store for their first gen hubs. I was able to control the shades and it automatically discovered up or raising of the shades but not lowering them. Another issue I had was with my X-finity receiver. It discovered the receiver correctly (you have multiple templates to choose from) and I chose the one that had everything including the channel numbers but were greyed out. The channel numbers which were grayed out indicating that they may or may not work and recommendation is to manually add them. The funny thing is, manual adding failed for the greyed out channel numbers worked perfectly! I could not use the greyed out numbers through Alexa etc.

I bought this specifically to use as a smart remote to control one item in my house with my Google Mini. Never did I thought that I would be able to control my entire home movie theater with this Broadlink. Very small and compact to start with so it is easy to tuck it away somewhere in your home to keep it out of sight. The app is for the most part user friendly but you do need to have some knowledge on how to program universal remotes to get the full potential. I love how you can build scenes on the app and Google Home recognizes the scenes and you can trigger them with a simple voice command once you program the Broadlink scene(s) into your Google home. The one con that I am finding is that being that it is IR technology, you would want to place it where the components that you want to control like you would with a regular remote controller in a place where it has almost a clear line of site to the said components. Aside from that, it is a great IR Blaster and having the RF technology onboard is an added bonus.

I bought this product to remotely control a TV and possibly some other devices for a handicapped person. Heres what I found: 1) it works over the same wifi network to provide a local wifi remote for a Roku TV. Great. But one cant use that remote over the internet. This is of course possible, the Alex Roku skill will control the TV from anywhere as long as there is an Alexa set up on the local wifi network. I can for example tell Alexa in my house to turn on the TV in the other persons house, set the input, etc. The Broadlink device clearly CAN communicate over the internet since I can use it remotely to control IR devices in the other house. However I suspect that the RM4 doesnt actually do wifi remotes, that is a function of the app. 2) When setting up IR remotes, NONE of the devices I had were pre configured. So 100% not matched despite the claim of 95% match. 3) The RM4 didnt come with a USB power adapter. Obviously one is likely to want to plug it into a power source. 4) It didnt work with the XFinity remote. Seems like a frequency issue. The particular frequency of that remote is not supported. For my use case Alexa worked and this didnt. Also Comcast has an app that works remotely (over the internet) to control the Xfinity box. Too bad I dont have some automated curtains I need to control. The only thing Im using this for now is to monitor temperature. In Celsius.

Update: now that I’ve had for about a week, here’s my update. Lost a star, because broadlink hub has to be directly in front of the receiver for it to work and looks ridiculous; needs IR blasters. Response time to turn volume up and down is terrible. 2 stars because I can control with Alexa. Honestly, $50 more and get the Harmony hub and place anywhere around the receiver. Even if Harmony can’t reach receiver, I can use IR blaster. I did program to use fireplace remote, but again the broadlink hub has to be directly in front of the fireplace. I got the broadlink so I can use IR and RF, but so far I can’t get get any RF to work. Was able to connect my Denon receiver without any problems using IR. Did relearn some of the buttons on the BroadLink app to match my remote. Will not connect to my RF remote ceiling fan. Doesn’t help that I don’t know what the RF is to my remote. I’ve searched everywhere I can think of.

Tried several items took forever and could only rarely get a single button or function to work

This is a bit tricky to set up and the only issue I have is that sometimes it forgets my appliances, but overall using it in conjunction with a Blink camera, it helps me keep an eye on the temperature in my room and whats going on in there when Im not there. Its pretty good. Im sure there must be a more reliable one out there though.

As mentioned in the title, despite hours of messing around with this unit and resetting and restarting I absolutely could not get this to integrate with Alexa. I was able to control devices remotely using the broad link app, but the devices would not show up under Alexa devices, which is why I bought this - for voice control. After all, what’s the point of using my phone as a remote control when I have the actual device remote control?!? The ONLY thing Alexa recognized was the temperature - but not the humidity. So the added skill in Alexa WAS working, however no controllable devices appeared. I saw in other reviews you have to use “scenes” to get this to work, I couldn’t find that option in Alexa - so it’s looks like that feature was removed. On the subject of “rolling code” RF devices: I’m sure you’re likewise asking yourself what that is, and more importantly how to know if a device uses them. Long story short there is no way to know (manufacturers don’t advertise this), but suffice it to say that if you have anything more advanced than cheap-o Christmas light remotes it probably has rolling code. This is not so much for security, but more to prevent the wrong remote from controlling a device. I bought this to control a dust collector remote in my wood shop, but it wouldn’t work due to rolling code. I’m honestly not sure why the manufacturer hasn’t implemented rolling code, it is very common. In fact most devices that have a button to “link” the remote is a rolling code learning feature. If you do link this up, and the device only turns on or off once using the app it is using rolling code. I also tried linking this to a remote outdoor switched outlet (Christmas light control) and it would only turn the device on, not off. I really wanted this to work, but without getting the Alexa component to integrate it is a rather useless brick, and an expensive one at that. I can confirm that this unit was a dual RF frequency unit, tested it with remotes on 315MHz and 433MHz bands. Usually the remote lists a frequency, but if not, the app can “search” for the frequency which is a really cool feature. This device is **almost** there, but Alexa not working is a deal breaker, that’s what I bought it for