You Thought You Didn't Need This… - Caavo Control Center Showcase
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,145 words · ~5 min read
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So I got completely dismantled the other day
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because I thought that even though there's so many ways
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to watch TV these days, from Hulu to HBO Now
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to like soon there's gonna be a Disney one for kids.
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And even though most of these are about 10 bucks a month,
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I still figured that most people
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would probably only really use like one or two of them.
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Netflix and YouTube, Prime Video and Showtime
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or Plex and maybe some kind of thing
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that's useful for watching sports.
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But then I found out that there are a lot of people out there
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who use way more than that.
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Like even our cameraman Dave who pays for Netflix,
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Amazon Prime, Crave and YouTube Premium.
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And those are just apps.
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These days even the hardware
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is starting to get original series
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like Apple TV's Carpool Karaoke.
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Now the problem is that as these services get more unique
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and non-overlapping content,
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it starts to get hard to remember
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not only which service has what shows,
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but even just to find the content that you wanna watch.
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Well, enter the sponsor of today's showcase, Kavo.
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The Kavo Control Center is one device
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that can manage all of your content.
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And one extra bonus is that you cannot lose the remote.
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They're intrigued, I can tell.
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Allow me to demonstrate the core value proposition
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of the Kavo Control Center.
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Watch the man in the high castle.
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And boom, it brings it up.
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You can see in the fine print there
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that it's prompting us to watch on Amazon Prime.
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But that show is an Amazon original series.
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So what about a show that's available on multiple services?
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Watch Friends season four, episode seven.
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Don't critique my taste.
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Now, first of all,
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being able to search episode by episode is pretty awesome
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because you can't do that yet
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with your Google Home, so that's a bonus.
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And if I click on it, it actually gives me the option
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of watching on any one of my three installed platforms here.
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Boop, neat, right?
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Now, a lot of you are probably thinking by this point,
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yeah, I don't really have any trouble remembering
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which media service my various content is on.
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But to me, the big selling point here
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is the wife and kids factor.
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So it's a hundred bucks upfront, and then $2 a month.
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For the service.
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But it makes it much less likely
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that you'll have to run over and open a show for someone
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when you're in the middle of making dinner or whatever.
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Now, of course, when you have so much content
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at your fingertips,
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targeted searching isn't your only problem.
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You also have to decide what to watch in the first place,
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which in my house is definitely like a key part
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of movie night.
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Like there's like half of it is figuring out
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what movie to watch,
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and the other half is actually watching half of the movie
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because then it's time to put the kids to bed.
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Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
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And that's why Kaavo has this dashboard
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of curated lists that are made by editors,
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taste makers, and other Kaavo users.
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Kind of like how you can share playlists on Spotify,
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except you can make your list out of any combination
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of TV shows, movies, live TV.
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It doesn't matter where the content comes from
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or what it is.
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And then you can either keep your lists private
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or you can share them with the community
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and be like an influencer or something.
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Now at the core of all this functionality
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is that little box.
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You know what?
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Let's bring the box over here.
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Wonderful, there we go.
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This little box, which is basically an HDMI 2.0 hub,
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meaning 4K at 60 Hertz.
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It's got HDR pass-through and support for Dolby Atmos,
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and it can support four connected devices at once.
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Now Kaavo had an original product before this,
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one that had more IO,
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but was also quite a bit more expensive.
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And what they found was this was kind of the sweet spot
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in terms of what most people want connected to their TV.
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So guys, leave a comment below.
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Let us know how many devices you have connected to your TV.
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Actually, I'd love to know what they are too.
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Just some interesting stuff for my own bathroom reading.
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Now, setup is one of the areas that in my opinion,
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they seem to have spent a lot of time on
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because it's really easy.
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And by the time you're done,
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the control center will have recognized
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all of your connected devices
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and made them compatible with the included remote.
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So you don't need, oof, all of, ugh.
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These anymore,
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since the Kaavo remote can control your game console
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and even your soundbar,
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as long as it connects via HDMI.
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Or you can connect the Kaavo to your TV via HDMI
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and then connect the TV to your soundbar or AVR
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via RCA or an optical cable.
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Okay, so then this remote's very powerful and important.
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What happens if you lose it?
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Well, if you're one of those people
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who spends their evenings talking to an Amazon Echo
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or a Google Home,
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then you might not even notice
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since the control center supports integration
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from both voice assistants.
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So you can do things like,
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okay, G-O-O-G-L-E.
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Sorry, I'm not gonna do that
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and activate all your guys' stuff.
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Okay, Google, raise the volume or A-L-E-X-A,
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switch to Roku or whatever the case may be.
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And it even has a function where you can ask Google
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to find your remote.
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It'll beep and stuff.
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Or, I mean, if you're a Luddite like me,
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and I don't actually have a Google Home,
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then you can press this button and it'll also do that.
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So thanks for watching, guys.
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And thanks to Kaavo for sponsoring this video.
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Their control center is available for Americans
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starting October 1st from Best Buy, Amazon,
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and their own website, kaavo.com,
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with no ETA yet for other regions.
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But personally, I'm pretty hopeful.
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If this video sucked, you guys know what to do.
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But if it was awesome, get subscribed,
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hit that like button,
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or check out the link to where to buy the stuff
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we featured in the video description.
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Also linked in the description is our merch store,
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which has cool shirts like this one,
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and our community forum, which you should totally join.
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Thanks again to Kaavo for sponsoring this video.
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And we will see you guys tomorrow.