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(More customer reviews)Within the first few minutes of test driving her new iMote, my 2.5 year old (yes, I know the box says 3+) landed in the pr0n district, something she has never done before in all her access to the TiVo remote. We don't get those channels, and she can't read yet, so no blood = no foul.
I am submitting a review of this product because buyers need to be aware that it is still capable of wandering into pr0n. It is a bit of false advertising IMHO. The packaging says "You select 5 safe TV channels- all others are blocked" which is perfectly untrue. Nothing is blocked. We didn't buy the iMote for the purpose of TV censorship, that is not a concern in our house. I bought it so she could navigate to her channels easily. And then what happened? She found the pr0n channels! The box also says "SAFE TV FOR KIDS!" which is subjective anyway. The only way the TV is going to be "unsafe" and hurt my toddler is if she knocks it over on herself and the glass TV stand. TV itself in not an "unsafe" thing. I don't really care that she landed on pr0n channels because we don't get them. But I feel a review is necessary to inform potential buyers that the product makes false claims, because I'm sure a lot of potential buyers are looking at this product for the purposes of channel censorship.
The way the iMote works, it gets programmed to send out the 2 or 3 number combo that you would normally have to hit 2 or 3 buttons to do on the regular remote. The kid hits one button, and the iMote sends out the 2 or 3 numbers it takes to get to that channel. Well, the iMote must be aimed at the receiver while it sends all three numbers out, and if your toddler is a remote-waving button-masher (she gets that from me) then the iMote sends out more than enough numbers to the receiver. This is how she ended up on channel 595 instead of 295. I swear to God this was not a setup. She just FAILed the iMote in the first few minutes she had it.
I am continuously coaching her on the proper way to operate it:
Step 1: Aim the remote at the TV, don't wave it around
Step 2: Push the button ONLY ONCE
Step 3: WAIT for the channel to change
She is an impatient button masher. If I don't intervene, she just sits there mashing buttons until she gives up, usually landing on some black screen that says we don't get channel 29022 or something like that. I am hoping repetition of the three steps will sink in soon. If not, I am going to reprogram the iMote for her grandma (who is too much like a toddler to operate much of anything). So if your goal is to make the TV easier to navigate for toddlers or grandmas and your user is somewhat trainable (those 3 steps), then there is hope for this product. I do not think it should be advertised as some sort of TV censorship device.
The volume button has a little bit of a delay on it so that the kid doesn't end up turning the volume too loud too fast. Perhaps a delay should be added to the channel buttons too? Programming the iMote was a bit of a pain at first (user error). You have to hit one number and wait for the blinking light to tell you it's ready for the next number in the sequence. Read the directions well, and you can get it figured out. As far as I can tell, the way it is programmed means it should work with any TV setup you might have, as long as your channel numbers aren't any longer than 3 digits.
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