Just got the e-mail saying that my R3 is on the way! I have been using the R2 for almost 2 years and while not perfect it is working very well for me. I was not an initial Kickstarter participant but ordered the R2 very soon after the Kickstarter was closed so I got it pretty soon after all the Kickstarted folks got theirs. Admittedly there was a VERY high degree of frustration getting the R2 to do what I want but with help from this community the R2 now controls my LG TV, Frontier DVR, Onkyo AVR, Sammy Blu Ray, Roku via IR. And with the help of Home Assistant Green it also controls various lights, ceiling fan, shades and thermostats. At the time I could not get any of the integrations to work so I fell back to IR and got all the devices to work. Yes, with IR sometimes the signal is lost or not full received by the device but it works 95% of the time so I’m not about to change anything.
My R2 implementation is not very fancy and is only text based - no images. But, again, it works. I bought the R3 as a backup just in case the R2 dies in the future so I’m not going to try to do a full setup on the R3 but I would like to play around with. So. . . . my question is will '“playing around” with the R3 interfere with my R2?
Lastly, I just wanted to say that I was VERY disappointed when I read here that allowing beta updates to the R2 and a certain release totally bricked the R2 I think even to the point that it could only be fixed by sending back to UC. Months ago I asked here if it was safe to allow beta updates and many people said it would be fine. I’m VERY glad I did NOT do that!! In fact, I used the setting in the R2 to prevent ANY updates. Yes, there may be some new features I won’t get but its more important to me to keep the R2 functioning as it is now.
Not every R2 was bricked by 2.7.0. I have one of the R2 with 2.7.0 running. When I got my R3 I started by restoring the backup of my R2. A bit tuning in button mapping and it was up and running in less than 1h.
Concerning interfere: using both at the same time will not really work. With IP only entities it can work. But if you start an activity on R2 it will not be in sync.
By the R3 not interfering with my R2, what I meant was that if I leave the R2 on but siting in its dock and not using it while working on the R3, would that screw up anything on the R2? For instance, I would not start an activity in the R2 and then try to do something in the R3.
I was also going to ask if I make a backup for the R2 could I restore that to the R3? Based on your answer it sounds like that should work.
As far as that beta update bricking only some of the R2s, I definitely would NOT want to take a chance.
And lastly, yes, a text only remote is kind of boring but it took me so long to just get everything to work on the R2 the way I wanted I was so overwhelmed that I NEVER wanted to touch its programming again!!
Actually, you helped me several times a long time ago when I was originally setting up my R2 - THANKS AGAIN!
I’m sure you are right about the relationship with stable R3 releases being beta releases for the R2. But the fact that many R2s were bricked by one of the beta releases really bothered me and, again, I’m glad I did not allow my R2 to get any of the beta releases.
The way you meant interfere it does not. For some weeks I have here my R3 in the dock while using one of my R2s. So if you start you can use your R2 if you want to see a movie und if you only play around you can test and optimize your R3.
I am not sure about many bricked R2 i read only about a handful here but we do not know how many were hit by user not active in discord. As I said my R2 run with 2.7.0.
Btw. Pictures are stored in a backup and restored also on a R3. So you can hardly mess up your programming by using pictures. Like in usage of a computer “no backup = no mercy".
