Nvidia Shield Remote
Nvidia Shield Remote
Nvidia sees its microconsole as a gaming machine first and everything else second. The bundled Shield Wireless Controller is a perfectly functional gamepad, but if you just want a simple, small, light way to control the device, you need to spend a bit more. The Shield Remote is a $49.99 companion controller, and between its tiny frame and few buttons are several useful features and design elements. It’s pricey for a simple accessory, though, at a quarter the price of the system itself.
Design
The Shield Remote is a tiny, 5.6-inch black wand that measures just 1.4 inches wide and less than a quarter of an inch thick. Its back panel, which wraps around to the front in two trapezoidal inlays, is black brushed aluminum, and the front surface is a glossy black plastic. It holds just four buttons—Back, Home, Voice Search, and Select—in the middle of a circular direction pad. An invisible touch-sensitive strip sits between the two inlays, and serves as a volume control.
The bottom end is home to a 3.5mm headphone jack. A micro USB port sits next to it for charging and syncing the remote with the Shield. According to Nvidia, the remote can last up to four weeks on a full charge. A small hole on the top end, just above the direction pad, holds the built-in microphone for voice search.
Wireless Audio
Thanks to its wireless connection that uses Wi-Fi radio instead of infrared to send commands to the Shield, the remote feels very responsive no matter where you point it or where the Shield itself is located (as long as it’s within wireless range). The wireless connection also makes audio streaming possible through the headphone jack, just like the remote; if you plug headphones into the remote, all audio on the Shield will go through them instead of your HDTV’s speakers. The built-in microphone functioned perfectly as well, sending my voice search terms to the Shield without issue.
The remote’s only real problem, besides its price, is its minimal set of controls. Devices like the Roku hubs and the have proven that you can get by with only a few buttons, but it helps when some of those buttons are dedicated to playback controls. You need to rely on the direction pad to control media playback with the Shield Remote, and while the center button defaults to Play/Pause and works fairly well, it simply isn’t as capable as a remote with individual Play/Pause, Rewind, and Skip buttons. For a snappy, high-tech $50 controller, this is a pretty big omission.
The Shield Remote is a very well-made little accessory, and it would have been fantastic as a bundled controller. As a purely optional $50 extra, however, it’s a tough sell. While it’s packed with useful features like a headphone jack, a microphone, Wi-Fi-based controls, and a rechargeable battery, it has too few buttons and is just too pricey. If Nvidia toned it down and traded the aluminum back and touch-sensitive volume control for a smaller price tag, it would be a much easier sell. As it stands, the remote is only appealing if you’re completely dedicated to the Shield as your sole media hub.
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