Reviewing the Sunflower Control Control A2 Game Edition
I’ve been interested in the Sunflower Control Control A2 for a long time. I’ve always wanted to buy one to use as a remote control. Originally, I was thinking of using a Raspberry Pi Zero and a collector to create one myself (but it costs 688 yuan, which is too expensive). However, I am quite lazy, so… I had the idea of doing it, but implementing it was postponed for a long time. Now, the Sunflower Control Control is on sale for 588 yuan on JD.com. I used some JD beans from JD Plus and got it for less than 500 yuan. I also discovered that by clicking on a few advertisements in the Sunflower remote control app’s Sunshine Store and binding it to WeChat, I can experience the functionality of the 2-day game version. I was considering whether or not to buy the game version, as there doesn’t seem to be a reliable user experience for Control Control. So I took the opportunity to write an article about it while using the game version. This article has a lot of videos, so the server’s bandwidth may not be able to handle it.(English version Translated by GPT-3.5, 返回中文)
Before the Review
The best thing about Control Control is that it can connect to a MacBook for remote control. This article will not discuss what the device looks like. You can search for that information yourself. I will only talk about the user experience.
Video Playback in WIFI and 4G Environments
The video used is from Detective Conan Episode 1016 OP, as this OP has rapid scene switching (when it sings “どうしようも無いくらい期待しているんだ”). This allows for a more direct observation of latency. The audio recording uses remote sound activation and is played from an iPad.
From my experience, the video playback is decent, but the frame rate seems a bit low. In WIFI environments, the latency is generally small, but in 4G environments, the latency becomes quite noticeable. You can see the videos (the left or top video is from a WIFI environment, and the right or bottom video is from a 4G environment). The video in the 4G environment starts to stutter, but then becomes smooth.
Game Experience: Final Fantasy 14
The game experience is in the same WIFI network segment. I will not provide any descriptions related to the game content, game difficulty, or equipment quality.
I don’t know if it’s my fault or something else, but the gaming experience using the Sunflower client on my Mac is very poor. The effect is as shown above, with two cursors and the camera moving between the sky and the ground. I have already set the mouse sensitivity to the lowest. I have attached a video of the local streaming effect using Moonlight for comparison. “I don’t know why there is lag when I record the screen, but it becomes smooth as soon as I stop recording (latest version of Moonlight).”
I saw a World of Warcraft keyboard on the iPad, so I decided to try it out. The video below shows my experience. I feel that the touch control takes some getting used to. After being used to using a keyboard and mouse, using touch controls is really uncomfortable. The WSAD on the iPad is actually triggered by scrolling to a certain position.
Finally, Using Control Control via 4G to Finish Writing This Section on a Mac
In this section, my PC is connected to my phone’s 4G network, and Control Control is connected to the router. Communication does not go through the local network (I disabled the local network adapter), so it should simulate the environment I will be using in the future.
On the right, I will keep playing a video. You can see that the video is actually quite smooth (playing One Piece should be fine. I just recorded 2-3 minutes, which happened to be during a plot… so I went with it). Overall, the effect should be satisfactory, except for the poor gaming experience I mentioned earlier. It is far inferior to Nvidia’s GameStream technology, but as a free user with only 300Kbps internet speed and no network optimization, I don’t know if it will crash after the game version is released. If it does, I’ll provide an update. If I don’t provide an update, then it’s a product that meets expectations.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this is my initial experience with the Sunflower Control Control. I’ve never written a review article before, so my writing may not be the best. But I don’t like reading the same old reviews online, discussing the appearance, what’s included in the box, the quality of the craftsmanship, etc. After all, we buy things to use them, not just for their appearance. A machine that looks like it’s been around for more than 10 years might still have two RTX 3090s inside…
This review may not be professional, so please point out any areas for improvement. I am open to feedback.
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