I've been really excited to unify my living room, so HDMI pas through for my cable box, and Kinect IR blasting is something I've looked forward to for a very long time now. I purchased a $200+ dollar universal remote (the most advanced Harmony UR), and while you can do more with it in terms of getting every last feature and button mapped, Xbox One makes the whole experience SOOOoooo much better... I returned my Harmony remote, and haven't looked back. There's really nothing I need a remote for, when it comes to just consuming entertainment now (both videos and games)... in any case, this Monday was my first chance to play with the end-to-end setup for home theatre integration/TV integration, and I'm in complete agreement with the other reviews out there - this is the future that I've been hoping and waiting for.
NOTE: Yes, I'm a biased MS employee, and my impressions will probably be written off by many as such... but I'll be honest through and through. Additionally, while I want MS to succeed, I'd never say a product was good if it wasn't. When I had a Windows Mobile phone (pre-Windows Phone 7), it was utter garbage, and I called it as such. It does no one any good to artificially pump up bad products. It's much better for me and for the company I work for to be honest about the good and the bad, so that we can identify where we can improve, and make things better. So just know that my impressions below are honest. I want us to succeed, and I do have an obvious bias, but I'm also not going to sugar coat anything. The iPhone was a better product than our Windows Mobile devices (prior to WinPhone 7), and I called it as such. So there you go. :-) ... on with the impressions!
The setup is super quick/easy. All you need to do is tell the system who your cable provider is, who makes your cable box, and then tell it what TV and receiver you have. I did that all in about 5 minutes (if that), and then I was off. If anyone's tried the Harmony UR setup, I have great news for you - this is WAY better, WAY easier, and WAY faster.
Using voice to control my entire home theater is really an amazing feeling. The sensation I got when using voice in Netflix for the first time was pretty incredible, and this just blows that away. Finally, I can just easily issue a single voice command (Xbox On), and my entire home theatre comes to life. When it's time for bed, I can issue another simply voice command, and it'll all shut down. It just works, and I didn't have to place special IR blasters in front of my devices or anything... Kinect just saturates the whole room with the IR signals, so no matter where I put my components (provided they're still in the same room *somewhere*), it'll just work.
I honestly don't think there's much for me to add which hasn't been said in the other reviews, but it really is the subtle things which make this whole living room integration piece just feel right. My wife and I flip between Netflix, games, and cable TV frequently, so this unification is a dream for us. My wife was blown away by how quick everything was, and how easy it was for her to use.
The other thing which is really better than I expected is the SmartGlass integration. I love being able to use my phone for volume control... and my wife doesn't enjoy 'talking to the TV" as much as I do, but she LOVES using her Windows Phone to adjust volume, mute, change channels, switch experiences, etc... it really does make the absolute best universal remote control in the world. The only caveat is that obviously you can't use *every* feature via voice/SmartGlass, so you'll still need your old school remotes for specific settings adjustments, and configuration... but for the vast majority of frequent use features - voice or SmartGlass will get you what you need/want.
I haven't experimented with the custom channels in the X1 guide yet, and I haven't yet put everything through the wringer, plus I've run into a couple minor snags... for example, there were a couple times when a voice command was mis-heard, and it did the wrong thing, but it was probably literally 1 out of every 20-30 commands... and it was also less common commands.
But I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE finally having a unified living room... and that alone is *EASILY* worth the $100 premium over PS4... especially when you consider that a universal remote which in some cases doesn't even work as well can cost you upwards of $200...
