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Hands-On With Salt's Apple TV Remote Replacement
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The Apple TV 4K is a fantastic little set-top box that has an easy-to-use interface, an App Store, and options to watch all kinds of content, but there's one major flaw with the device - the Siri Remote.
Apple unveiled its Siri (or Apple TV) Remote with touch surface in 2015 alongside the fourth-generation Apple TV, and it's never been a particularly popular accessory. With that in mind, Swiss company Salt created an alternative Apple TV Remote, which we managed to get our hands on.
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Salt is a Swiss telecommunications company that offers the Apple TV 4K in a broadband TV bundle for its customers. There's no way to order this remote in the United States or countries other than Switzerland - it's designed only for Salt customers.
According to Salt, the Salt Remote was designed in close collaboration with Apple after the Salt TV customer base complained about the poor usability of the default remote that comes with the Apple TV.
Available for just under 20 Swiss francs, the Salt Remote looks more like a traditional remote than Apple's version, and it's made from a simple black plastic with buttons for controlling multiple functions.
It is designed to connect to the Apple TV out of the box and requires no pairing to set up. It's both wider and longer than the Siri Remote, so it's harder to lose, which is probably a good thing for most people given how easy it is to misplace the Siri Remote.
Unlike the Siri Remote, the Salt Remote has no touch interface on the front, offering buttons as an alternative. On the Siri Remote, the touch surface replaces directional arrows and there are limited physical buttons available.
Salt's remote features directional arrows for navigation purposes, volume controls, multiple media controls with play/pause, rewind, and fast forward, a mute button, a menu button, and a power button. All of the buttons are responsive and easy to use.
There is no microphone button for activating Siri because Siri is not an available Apple TV function on the Apple TV set-top boxes in Switzerland. Anyone who uses the current Apple TV remote with Siri for searching for content will definitely notice the lack of a Siri button.
There's also no Home button available on the Salt remote. On Apple's version, the Home button lets you get to the Home screen quickly and access the app switcher to close out apps or swap between apps. Holding down the menu button on the Salt Remote brings you to the Home screen of the Apple TV, but there's no way to replicate the other missing Home button functionality.
Given that this is an inexpensive remote option, it is powered with two triple A batteries that need to be replaced every six months on average, but that's a minor inconvenience.
All in all, the Salt Remote is clean, simple to use, and has no fiddly touch interface to deal with. Unfortunately, given that this is developed by a Swiss company, it is unlikely to come to the United States or other countries.
Apple may have allowed an alternative remote for one telecom, but it's doubtful that Apple would allow the Siri Remote to be replaced in all countries. It's possible that we could, however, see a new Siri Remote design at some point when Apple releases an updated Apple TV.
What do you think of the Salt Remote? Let us know in the comments.
Article Link: Hands-On With Salt's Apple TV Remote Replacement
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The One for All streamer remote available at Walmart and Best Buy gets very good reviews, and will also control a TV and a sound bar or AV receiver. It’s also a learning remote.
It’s compatible with most infrared remote streamers, but not RF remotes. Compatibility list is here:
Been frustrated with the Apple TV remote as I often try to move back-and-forth within cable news programs. More often than not, usually when I get a bit careless, I get blown out of the program being watched and have to re-enter and Resume.
About a week ago I obtained Salt, the Swiss-made Apple TV-compatible remote. Shipped from Switzerland, not cheap, but it did arrive quickly.
PLUSES: works very well with Apple TV; nice finish, works right out of the box and is compatible with the existing Apple TV remote (nice if there are more than one of you). MINUSES: no surprise, but this remote cannot control Up/Down volume on my Onkyo amp/receiver. (Through some magic the Apple Remote CAN control the volume on the Onkyo; no such luck with the Salt.)
So, for another $25 or so added a Slideclick (https://www.sideclickremotes.com/collections/all). The unit is designed for a Roku (actually, most Rokus). Luckily it fit alongside the Salt Remote pretty well (see photo below). Slideclick has seven (7) Learn buttons. The learning function works as well as on any remote I've ever had (many, many).
Follow-up: So far haven't figured out a way for the Salt's volume controls to adjust volume when listening to an Apple TV program through airpods. (It works fine for controlling the volume of the TV through which the program is playing.) By contrast, the Apple TV remote will change volume when airpods are being used as the listening device.
About a week ago I obtained Salt, the Swiss-made Apple TV-compatible remote. Shipped from Switzerland, not cheap, but it did arrive quickly.
PLUSES: works very well with Apple TV; nice finish, works right out of the box and is compatible with the existing Apple TV remote (nice if there are more than one of you). MINUSES: no surprise, but this remote cannot control Up/Down volume on my Onkyo amp/receiver. (Through some magic the Apple Remote CAN control the volume on the Onkyo; no such luck with the Salt.)
So, for another $25 or so added a Slideclick (https://www.sideclickremotes.com/collections/all). The unit is designed for a Roku (actually, most Rokus). Luckily it fit alongside the Salt Remote pretty well (see photo below). Slideclick has seven (7) Learn buttons. The learning function works as well as on any remote I've ever had (many, many).
Follow-up: So far haven't figured out a way for the Salt's volume controls to adjust volume when listening to an Apple TV program through airpods. (It works fine for controlling the volume of the TV through which the program is playing.) By contrast, the Apple TV remote will change volume when airpods are being used as the listening device.
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I use the Harmony Companion, although it was known by other names I believe. It does almost everything that I'd want in a remote, except allow a way to get to close open apps on the ATV. It sometimes has a stumble when turning on several devices at once, and in particular seems to hate my wife. I can push the button for the ATV, and everything turns on, over and over again, and it seems to have a problem when she's pushing the buttons. No idea what's going on, but it's funny... I must be the remote god? If it fails me, it's reprogrammed. I like to think it's my aura. 
It's IR, and with dogs, and a wife that seems to put her finger over the LED, I was tempted, but will pass. Sounds like a good idea, but...
If you’re going to use a sideclick why not just team it with the Apple remote?
My only reason to obtain the Salt Remote was to improve on being able to Forward/Backward 10 seconds and Fast Forward/Fast Reverse better and more reliably than with the current Apple TV Remote. (Maybe I'm just challenged in terms of mastering the Apple Remote in this regard; I could believe it.)
As far as I can tell, strapping SlideClick onto an Apple Remote wouldn't help with this because you cannot train SlideClick to incrementally fast forward, etc.
Regarding the OneForAll Streamers (Walmart, etc.), it's not clear to me that that remotes] supports moving a recorded Apple TV program forward/backward in 10 second increments. If it does, then that product seem to be a much better value than Salt + SlideClick.
No, SideClick wouldn’t help for fast forwarding. It took me a while but I figured out Apple’s method. What SideClick gives me is TV and volume control.