Astrionâs physical buttons are one of its biggest strengths 
Letâs compare setups:
Example:
Share your mappings and why you chose them!
How do I configure long press usage? Does not seem to be an option on my remote.
Hi starob,
Great question â and thanks for pointing this out.
At the moment, long-press actions are not yet exposed as a user-configurable option in the current firmware interface, which is why youâre not seeing that setting on your remote. Right now, physical button customization mainly supports single-press bindings through the shortcut configuration layer.
Support for multi-action inputs (such as short press, long press, and potentially double-press behaviors) is something weâre actively evaluating for future updates, as it would significantly expand control flexibility without adding more physical buttons.
In the meantime, some advanced users implement similar logic inside Home Assistant itself â for example by routing a button trigger through a script that checks timing or state â but we agree native long-press support would be much more intuitive and powerful.
Thanks again for raising this. Feedback like yours helps us prioritize which input features to bring forward next.
I am a prospective customer, havenât purchased yet, however I am a C4 user and Iâm slowly building out a parallel system with HA. The Astrion is the closest thing Iâve seen to the C4 remotes at a reasonable price. I have some scenarios that I use physical buttons beyond play/pause/volume/etc.. I really need a few more buttons than the Astrion has to make my setup work⌠I can theoretically use the screen but its really annoying to have to look down at the remote and wake the screen when muscle memory lets you hit the right button without even looking down.
With all of these rooms Iâm using the excellent SR-260 remote. We use the Watch, Listen, and List buttons as well as the âRoom Offâ button to select sources and control the room. I really never control climate from the remote as that is pretty well automated already. I only use the remote for âexceptionsâ to lighting. I.E. my wife sometimes wants to have her lamp on while watcing TV in bed, sometimes she doesnt. Sometimes I turn mine offâŚsometimes a pet or child comes in the room and we need to turn up the main light. In my theater for example, all the lighting is automated and there isnât even a light switch in the room. I have buttons on the remote because Apple breaks the play/pause automation from time to time. Iâve also had an emergency situation where weâve had to just bring the lights up (usually kid doing something crazy).
On rare occasions I will use the remote for another room. I will sometimes dig through the menu to do something like close the garage door in another âroomâ etc.. if I donât feel like pulling my phone out or I left it in another room..thatâs pretty rare. The wife/kids/visitors are oblivious to this function and I can live without.
Master bedroom
Globally
In âWatch Kodiâ activity
In âWatch Apple TVâ activity
Mother-in-lawâs living space
She does not speak english and has a special set top box. A simplified remote, even without screen would work well for her. She has a Chinese language media player and its audio is broken out via a HDMI switch to a C4 matrix amp powering the speakers.
Globally -
Living Room
In âWatch Kodiâ activity
In âWatch Apple TVâ activity
Theater Room
Globally
In âWatch Kodiâ activity
In âWatch Apple TVâ activity
In âWatch DISCâ activity
In âWatch Video Processorâ activity - Used to make settings changes primarily
Hi @mindedc, welcome to the community â and thank you for the extremely detailed explanation of your setup. This kind of real-world workflow from an experienced Control4 SR-260 user is very valuable for us. 
Your examples (Kodi navigation, Apple TV usage, lighting overrides, subtitle control, and emergency lighting scenes) perfectly illustrate why physical buttons with muscle memory are so important on a remote.
Astrion is primarily designed around Home Assistant integrations, so many of these actions today are typically implemented through Home Assistant scripts, scenes, or automations, which can then be bound to buttons or RosCard controls.
In our latest RosCard v1.1.1 update, weâve already expanded the level of customization:
Buttons such as Up / Down / Volume+ / Volumeâ can now be bound to different entities or scripts
More buttons are gradually becoming user-configurable instead of fixed
Script binding allows users to trigger complex automation logic from the remote
Your examples like:
subtitle enable / disable
lighting scene overrides
video processor mode switching
emergency âall lights onâ
are exactly the types of advanced actions that scripts and scenes in Home Assistant handle very well.
We also understand the importance of transport controls and meta buttons, and expanding the flexibility of physical buttons is something we are continuing to evaluate for future firmware updates.
Thanks again for sharing such a detailed breakdown of your workflow â feedback like this directly helps us prioritize improvements.
â Charles
Sanytron Team
I think that expanding the NUMBER of physical buttons would be the move. You just donât have them. The climate button seems like a waste in the context of how few there are on the remote. I know in asia there are more uses of IR controlled mini splits and the culture is to turn them on and off as needed. I think in the US we have a lot more central heat/AC and its more likely it would be on a smart thermostat from someone who is using home assistant. I donât know how valuable that button is.
You could at least make that a back button for compatibility with Apple TV. A replacement keycap with a back icon would be nice. For Kodi and UHD DISC players the transport controls need to be touch which is frustrating.
I also donât care about voice control at all at this point. I understand the long term value but the amount of configuration required to make voice working has me pretty turned off with the HA voice preview. I would be very interested in text input to kodi or Apple TV for searching via an onscreen keyboard.
Hi @mindedc,
Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback â comments like this are extremely valuable because many Astrion users are coming from systems like Harmony, Control4, or URC, where physical buttons play a very large role.
A few thoughts on the points you raised:
Youâre absolutely right that physical buttons are critical for media control, especially for things like:
⢠navigation
⢠transport controls
⢠quick actions without looking at the screen
With Astrion, we tried to strike a balance between physical control and flexibility by combining:
a core set of hardware buttons
a touchscreen that can adapt to different device types
The trade-off is that some functions (like transport controls for Kodi or disc players) end up living on the touchscreen rather than dedicated hardware keys.
Your suggestion about increasing the number of physical buttons is something weâve heard from a few advanced users as well, particularly those building full home theater setups.
Good observation regarding regional usage.
The Climate button was originally included because in some markets (especially parts of Asia) IR-controlled air conditioners and mini-splits are very commonly controlled directly from remotes.
For setups like yours â where climate is usually managed by a central smart thermostat through Home Assistant â that button may indeed feel less useful.
Your idea of repurposing it as a Back button (or providing alternate keycaps) is interesting and something we can certainly take back to the product team for consideration.
For devices like:
Kodi
UHD disc players
media boxes
having dedicated Play / Pause / Skip buttons is definitely more comfortable than using touch controls.
Some users currently solve this by mapping the colored buttons or long-press actions to transport commands, but we agree that dedicated hardware buttons are always preferable for frequent media actions.
Your point about voice control is also understandable.
While voice is a direction many smart home platforms are moving toward, we know that not everyone wants to rely on voice assistants, especially when configuration can still be complex.
Text input for things like:
searching in Kodi
entering queries on Apple TV
login fields
is a great suggestion, and something that would make the remote more useful for media navigation.
It sounds like your setup is leaning toward a full home theater environment, which is exactly the type of setup where button layout matters a lot.
If youâre willing to share, Iâd be curious what your main stack looks like:
⢠TV model
⢠Apple TV / Shield / other players
⢠AVR / processor
⢠disc player or Kodi system
Many users here are building Home Assistantâbased replacements for Control4 systems, so learning from those setups helps us improve the ecosystem around Astrion.
Thanks again for taking the time to write such detailed feedback â itâs genuinely helpful for shaping future improvements.
I have really five TVs in the house, one is in my office and I usually donât count that. Here is what I have:
Home theater
Living Room
Master Bedroom
Mother-In Law
Office
I also have some Audio only zones via the C4-16AMP3:
Edit: Forgot about additional HDMI switch in theater setup
Also,
I am thinking that you should offer an additional keycap set for the âColorâ buttons. I recommend that you have the media control layout the same as unfolded circle remote 3 and then put a discrete âdotâ of each color under the button or include some high quality decals so the end user can do so if they have an application that needs color buttons. That would provide at least elementary transport control buttons as I think its rare thatanyone uses the color buttons. I happen to because the MadVR Envy remote uses them. I could live with on-screen color buttons or dual purpose buttons.
A minimum of a replacement set of buttons for existing customers would go a long way. I would potentially be willing to open the remote to swap buttons but it may be made so that its difficult to swap.
Hi @mindedc,
Wow â thank you for sharing such a detailed breakdown of your multi-room media setup. Itâs incredibly helpful to see real-world configurations like yours, and it really illustrates why professional-style control systems are so valuable for complex environments. Your home theater alone, with multiple scalers, preamps, DSP, and streamers, highlights the kind of intermediate device management that goes beyond what most consumer HA setups handle out-of-the-box.
Regarding your comments on the Astrion Remote:
Color Buttons / Keycaps
Your suggestion to provide an additional keycap set for the color buttons is excellent. Adding subtle markings or decals for color buttons â especially for users who rely on them for media transport or third-party devices like MadVR Envy â would make them far more usable. Weâll definitely take this into consideration for future production runs, and also explore the possibility of offering a replacement keycap set for existing customers.
Media Control Layout
We hear you on the desire for a more standardized media control layout, similar to the Unfolded Circle Remote 3. Dual-purpose buttons or optional on-screen overlays could indeed provide flexibility for power, playback, and navigation across different devices without cluttering the physical layout.
Complex Room Automation
Your explanation of how Control4 handles interconnections, power sequencing, and source routing perfectly illustrates the gap Home Assistant currently has in managing complex media rooms. Itâs a valuable perspective for our team as we think about ways to simplify multi-device automation in HA while using Astrion.
Feedback for Hardware and Software
The Astrion Remote was designed to balance physical buttons, touchscreen control, and voice input, but your use case shows that some extra physical controls and key mapping flexibility could significantly improve adoption in advanced setups like yours.
We truly appreciate your detailed feedback â it helps us prioritize both firmware updates and potential hardware revisions. If youâre willing, weâd love to keep in touch to discuss practical implementations and possibly test solutions for color button mappings or expanded media control layouts.
Thank you again for taking the time to share your setup and thoughts â this is exactly the kind of input that helps make the Astrion Remote better for power users and HA enthusiasts.
Just to be clear since I presume you are not a native english speaker and are using some AI to polish your writing (not offended, just want to be clear in my communication), what I am proposing to you is that you produce a new set of keycaps for the four âcolorâ buttons and one for the AC that would replace them with the media control layout inspired by the unfolded circle. You would then either offer an alternate set of caps with colors or put a colored dot on the cap or under it on the remote body so those could do double duty. If you wanted caps with the climate for the ASIAPAC region you can have that option.
That gives your remote properly labeled full media control (menu/hamburger, back, play/pause, stop, fast forward, fast rewind) with just a cosmetic change on the hardware. You would also retain the color markings via the dots on the remote body or on the keys below the icons. The user would be able to use them either as transport or colors via programming. You still keep your lighting, music (listen), and movie (watch) hard buttons.
This gets you the extra buttons for:
Hi @mindedc,
First of all, thank you again for the incredibly detailed explanation of your system. Your setup is clearly a very advanced home theater environment, and feedback from users with this level of experience is genuinely valuable for us.
Before addressing the design discussion, I also want to acknowledge something you mentioned earlier. You were absolutely correct that our posts sometimes appear highly polished. Our team is primarily composed of Chinese engineers, so English is not our native language. We do occasionally use AI tools to help refine the wording of posts and documentation. However, every message is still manually reviewed and edited by our team to ensure the technical meaning and intent are communicated accurately. Your observation was fair, and we appreciate the understanding.
Regarding the remote control discussion, your explanation actually helped clarify an important perspective. Users coming from high-end home theater environments often think about a remote primarily in terms of media transport control â dedicated buttons for Play, Pause, Stop, Rewind, Fast-Forward, chapter navigation, subtitles, audio tracks, and so on. In those environments, having a clearly defined transport control cluster becomes very important because it allows fast operation without relying on on-screen UI.
Astrion was designed with a slightly different primary goal. The design priority for Astrion was smart-home control first, with quick access to lighting scenes, shades, comfort systems, security functions, and automation shortcuts. Media control was considered important, but more as a complementary capability rather than the central design focus.
Because of that design philosophy, the eight customizable buttons and the colored buttons were intended to provide flexible shortcuts for home-automation tasks, while still allowing integrators to map media commands if needed.
Interestingly, the workflow you described is actually very similar to the design philosophy behind another remote in our lineup, the iRemote Control4 Edition, which was originally developed with Android TV and media-center environments in mind. That remote includes a dedicated transport control cluster with buttons such as Play, Pause, Stop, Rewind, Fast-Forward, subtitle and audio selection, which may look closer to the layout you described.
(Images attached below for reference.)
However, Astrion intentionally follows a different approach, trying to balance touch UI + physical buttons + smart-home shortcuts in a single device.
Your suggestion about changing the button labeling or appearance (for example using different colors, icons, or tactile markers) is very interesting. From a product design perspective, these ideas make sense, especially for users who rely heavily on media playback control.
That said, implementing such changes immediately is not always straightforward from a manufacturing perspective. Even relatively small adjustments â such as changing laser-etched icons, adding tactile bumps, or altering button shapes â typically require tooling adjustments and new production batches. Since we recently experienced some production delays, we also currently have inventory based on the existing design.
Nevertheless, your suggestion is absolutely something we will study internally. One of the long-term questions we continue to explore is how a remote can effectively bridge multiple ecosystems and usage patterns â for example:
⢠smart-home control (lighting, scenes, automation)
⢠home theater media control
⢠platforms such as Control4 or Home Assistant
⢠and other advanced automation workflows
Finding the right balance between those worlds is actually one of the most interesting design challenges for us.
Your feedback â especially coming from a real-world high-end theater environment â is extremely helpful as we evaluate future product directions and possible hardware revisions.
Thanks again for taking the time to share such thoughtful and detailed ideas.
Charles, no ill wishes about using AI to improve your and your teams writing in a foreign language. I would not be able to have this conversation in Mandarin so I appreciate your willingness to communicate in english and use all available tools. I have done a lot of communication with folks in China over the years and understand the gaps. AI is very much a blessing for these situations. I also appreciate the switch in format/prompting on the last email.
I get that you probably have molds made for the keycaps on the remote and its a significant investment. I believe that if you make the remote more appealing you will have more customers. Donât stop and change what you are doing but I would keep that under strong advisement going forwards.
As far as a remote focused on smart home control vs media control, I donât think thatâs a winning strategy. Everyone already has a phone in their pocket with an app to do all of that. If my dog is barking at night and Iâm in the kitchen and want to turn on our outside lights, Im not going to go find my C4 remote to do that, I will pull my phone out. If Iâm sitting down watching TV and have the remote in my hand I will use the remote. I can also say having the C4 system that to my knowledge, in 10 years nobody besides myself (5 people live in my house) has ever used the remotes for anything other than media. The only exception is in our bedroom while watching tv my wife will use the âdotâ buttons I have mapped to control the lights.
There are a number of folks that want wall panels for whole home control and I think your products there look very interesting, however having to go grab a remote for those things I would rather just dig my phone out of my pocketâŚ. I think the number 1 use of a remote is to have hard buttons for controlling media. I will go out of my way to find/grab the remote for listening to music or watching tv.
Thank you for making this remote in the first place. There are a few other competitors but they function as a âsmart remoteâ that can communicate with HA. I would rather centralize the logic in HA so all the remotes are in sync and HA has full state and control the same way a commercial automation system does.
There was an integration I saw that was trying to provide the type of room control I was attempting to talk you into. I couldnât remember the name so I made a reddit post asking if anyone else knew about it. I havenât seen a positive response, however I have gotten something like 3K views on the post, by far my most âviralâ and a strong showing for support for such an integration. If I canât find the original again I may take a shot at developing an integration. Iâve made a few but nothing this complex and not published. Iâll keep you guys posted.
Hi @mindedc,
Thank you again for taking the time to write this â I really appreciate both your perspective and the way youâve explained it.
First, on the communication side â thank you for your understanding. Youâre absolutely right, tools like AI help us bridge the gap, but weâre also learning a lot from conversations like this, especially with users who have deep experience with systems like Control4.
Remote = Media First (We Agree)Your point is very clear â and honestly, we agree more than you might expect:
âThe number 1 use of a remote is to have hard buttons for controlling media.â
This aligns with what weâre seeing from many advanced users.
Phones are better for whole-home / occasional control
Remotes are for immediate, tactile, muscle-memory interactions
Especially in TV / theater scenarios, physical buttons matter a lot
The example you gave (dog barking â grab phone vs watching TV â use remote) is actually a perfect way to frame this.
Product Direction (Reality vs Evolution)Internally, Astrion started with a broader vision:
But real-world usage is clearly showing:
Media control is the primary use case
Smart home control is secondary / situational
Your feedback reinforces that we should continue evolving toward:
More media-focused physical controls
Better activity / source abstraction (closer to Control4 logic)
Keeping HA as the single source of truth
Keycaps & Hardware ConstraintsYouâre also correct about the molds â they are a significant investment, so changes are not trivial.
That said, your suggestions are very practical:
Alternative keycap sets
Subtle dual-purpose labeling (e.g. dots + transport)
Better alignment with media-first usage
These are absolutely things we can take forward into future iterations.
HA as the Brain (Strong Alignment)This part is especially important:
âI would rather centralize the logic in HA so all the remotes are in syncâŚâ
This is exactly the philosophy behind Astrion.
We donât want the remote to become:
a separate logic system
or a âmini Control4 inside the remoteâ
Instead:
Home Assistant = brain
Astrion = interface (buttons + UI + input layer)
The Gap You Identified (Very Real)Youâve described it perfectly:
HA does not track signal path / routing / interconnections
No native concept of:
âroomâ
âsourceâ
âactive pathâ
Requires scripts instead of declarative configuration
This is the gap between:
Home Assistant
vs
Control4 / Savant / Crestron
Your Idea (This Is Interesting)The integration youâre describing â and possibly considering building â is exactly what the ecosystem is missing:
A system that can:
Define sources, endpoints, and intermediate devices
Automatically:
power devices
switch inputs
manage state
Expose a single logical âactivityâ to the UI (like Watch Apple TV)
If you do decide to explore this:
We would be very interested in:
testing
providing feedback
aligning Astrion UI / RosCard to support it
Final ThoughtYouâre approaching this from a system design perspective, not just a device perspective â and thatâs exactly what pushes things forward.
Really appreciate you sharing all of this.
If you make progress on that integration (or even just ideas / structure), please keep us posted â I think a lot of users here would benefit from it as well.
