Savant today unveiled the Savant Remote. It is, by far, the coolest (and easiest to program) handheld remote we have ever seen. No joke. At this time, it’s aimed exclusively at home entertainment as it only controls that part of your house (i.e. TV, all the stuff connected to your TV, whole house audio systems, smart lighting systems, etc) but, they made it clear to me that they were going to upgrade it (think: iPhone-like updates) that make it work with HVAC, security systems and more over the coming year.

And, we got a bit of inside information: They will be launching a commercial AV one, too. So, that’s why we’re posting this story in the ProAV and HomeAV newsletters and on our website everywhere.

It’s like a universal remote with some home automation. The built-in (no need to self-configure) parts of the Savant Remote includes all TV’s, Sonos, Apple TV, all cable boxes, Roku, Philips lights and a over 380,000 of today’s most popular entertainment devices, but everything else can be programmed (very, very easily) by the homeowner.

The Savant Remote is part of Savant’s new family of wireless devices, which also includes the Savant Host, Blaster, and Lamp Controller — all designed by the famous design studio Ammunition, led by industrial designer Robert Brunner. That’s why it looks so good – it literally makes all other handheld remotes look super boring. But, Savant says that it is integrated with their Savant’s Pro smarts.

It has buttons below a touchscreen and all the control happens wirelessly via Bluetooth (to the Savant Host base) and then it’s converted to Wi-Fi and IR without requiring any line of sight between the Remote and your entertainment system. In fact, the IR Blaster shoots IR all over the room in all directions (for IR controlled gear like a TV, AppleTV, Roku, etc) and the WiFi does the rest (like the Sonos, the lighting systems, etc).

Oh, if that wasn’t enough, the dang thing has built-in voice recognition (and my test was it was better than Apple’s Siri and anyone that knows me knows I use Siri a lot. So, you can simply say “FOOD NETWORK” or “APPLE TV” and it performs all the functions (they didn’t say how many in one command but they did say over 20) So, when you say “Food Network” it turns on the tv and the cable or satellite box, then switches inputs on the TV and turns to the Food Network channel – oh, and can dim the lights automatically if that was a command you programmed to happen every time your TV was turned on. And, built in, when you say “GOODNIGHT,” everything turns off.

So, how easy is it to set-up? Well, they designed something called Savant Instant, an in-app guided setup for the Smart Remote that walks users through each step of the setup process, and helps them connect all their entertainment devices without needing to know specific model types or model numbers.

It will ship in early December, just in time for the holidays.and the Savant Remote + Host entertainment package will cost $499. Lamp Controllers will be available separately for $99 each, giving homeowners the ability to turn lamps on and off from anywhere using either the Savant Remote or Savant App.

You can learn more here.