VooMote Zapper Begins Shipping, Make Your iOS Device A Universal Remote

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Our friends out at the Max Borges Agency sent out a tip our way about the VooMote Zapper, the followup to the VooMote One, which we introduced you to back last July. And the VooMote Zapper looks to provide a bit more functionality than the VooMote One did.

Basically, the VooMote Zapper is a small paperclip-sized device that slips into the dock connector port of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. You then download a free app to make the whole thing click, and you’ve turned your iOS device of choice into a universal remote. It’s said to work evenly well with most anything that includes a remote–TVs, disc players, DVRs and the like–and should be reasonably easy to update as the app handles most of the command functions.

You’ll also be able to get it in your choice of fully eight different colors, and you’ll be able to also pick up a matching iPhone or iPad case for the whole affair just in case you want to go for the aesthetics of the whole thing.

As for differences between the VooMote One and the VooMote Zapper, the biggest one will be one of price–where the VooMote One was set to run $99, the VooMote Zapper by itself will knock $30 off the price down to $69.99. Picking it up with an iPhone case, meanwhile, adds an extra $10, while adding an iPad case adds an extra $20, meaning that the whole thing will top out at $89.99, which is still less than the VooMote One ran. You’ll be able to pick these up in January of 2012, but if you want just the dongle by itself, it’s out now.

Personally, I like the thought of taking a device you’d use anyway and making it serve more functions. There’s nothing wrong with a little extra efficiency, and the VooMote Zapper lets you take an iOS device and add still more functionality to it. Considering that plenty of people keep a tablet or the like on hand anyway for playing during commercials, letting it also change channels and dig up information on the shows you’re watching seems like a natural fit.

But what do you guys think here? Figure that the VooMote Zapper might have a place near your TV chair? Or do you figure that this is $70 spent better elsewhere? No matter what your opinion, the comments section below is waiting for you to fill us in!