Smash Mute.The Big, Fat TV Mute Button (a.k.a. Your Happy Button)

Fed up with screeching commercials, but my fingers always had problems finding the teeny-tiny Mute button on the remote. Often I missed and instead hit the Off button. Now, just a quick hit of the button stops the irritating noise. $19.50 isn't inexpensive, but it's worth it to me. Silence is golden.Product Comments:- The unit is large, as pictured. No problem finding Mute with this one.- Appears well constructed, button has solid feel. It should take a lot of angry pounding.- Very easy set-up. Just move a switch on its underside to "LEARN", point your remote to its underside "LEARNING" portal, press your remote's "Mute" button, wait for the light to blink and return the switch to "USE." That's it.- Works well. No problem with it finding my TV's IR port.

Great little product, worked perfect, easy as pie to program to my AT&T U-verse remote. You don't have to smash it. A gentle press of the big red button does the trick. To program, just turn it on, aim it at your remote, press the function button you want to copy from the remote, and return the button to off on the Smash Mute. A 5-second project at most. I actually ordered a second one so that both my wife and I can mute all of those ridiculously loud commercials that nobody wants to hear anyway. Highly recommended product since I thought I conceived it. Then did a search on Amazon and found out someone else beat me to the patent office. This would make a great gift for friends too. Buy two of them right off the bat. Great stuff here and pretty well made too.

Easy enough to teach the device and AWESOME to shut off the crap on TV I will never be interested in maybe 3 times and then no lights, no mute, no happiness. Those batteries might have been old, so bought new batteries. Joyousness at the silence instead of blabbering talking heads! Wah wah wah. 2 times it worked. No lights, no learning light, talking heads blabbering on. Checked the voltage on the batteries thinking there may be a short in the device. 1.6V on each battery. Tried another set of new batteries. Nothing.

I hate listening to advertising. It's a huge pet peeve of mine. My husband tunes everything out and doesn't always notice when ads are on so he doesn't always mute the TV when they come on. Sometimes he will turn the volume down, but I can still hear people talking. I asked for one of these for Christmas, and then my birthday, but apparently no one wanted to give me the satisfaction of smashing my fist down on a big red button to shut people up. So I bought it for myself and it works like a charm. It took almost no time to set up. Nothing at all like trying to program one of those universal remotes and having to go through a lot of codes or something. Just point your remote at this while it's on "learn" mode, push your remote's mute button, switch this off of learn and you're good to go. Now I just have to learn to use finesse and tact so I don't turn off the volume on programs someone else is watching that I'm not interested in.

Sets up very easily. However our tv uses the Sonos sound bar, hence, no remote for the sound bar, no remote to set up the sound for mute. Works great if we’re using the tv speakers only.

I have not had any issues with this product. I do not smash it, I touch it. Push it. But you could smash it. Coax it lovingly.Is it worth the price? Well, at $20 to $25, it's pricey and thus I deducted a star. It's durable and good, not cheaply made. It should be 20% less in price, in my opinion. Frankly, if these were $12.99, I think the company would sell ten times as many..I own two Snashmutes, my friend owns a Mute Daddy, also on Amazon. We had a battle royale!Construction: Snashmute wins as button is bigger and stronger...you can actually gently smash it. Daddy is a smaller, more fragile button. I use the snashmute with my heel while it’s resting on the coffee table sometime, can’t with Daddy. +1 SmashSize: Daddy is smaller, more likely to slip in between couch cushions. Smashmute has rubber feet, sits on arm of recliner better, easy to find, bright red. +1 SmashVolume: Daddy has volume buttons, Smash has none. I argue that makes the Daddy overly complex, might hit wrong button when trying to mute, but since it’s a sometimes used feature, will reluctantly give point to Daddy +1. Note Daddy has power button too.Timer: This is very hard to use. The multiple clicks is a deal killer. Even if I knew how long the commercial will be, say it was 2.5 minutes, why would I want to click this thing five times? It’s awful. Hey, sorts fans....wanna mute the entire half-time NFL or between periods NHL...what are you supposed to do, hit Mute Daddy 40 times? It’s nonsense. Sure, there’s a tiny mute button, but that defeats the purpose. Smashmute is Bang on, bang off, that’s Smashmute. Smash +1.Ease of programming: snashmute in 5 seconds, literally. No power, no volume, no fuss. It’s so easy, in fact, that you could easily use Smashmute between two TV sets with a simple reprogram. You point the actual real remote at the snashmute after flipping a switch on the Smashmute, hold the mute button on the real remote while pointing it at the snashmute, then just flip off the same switch on the snashmute again. Set!. +1 SmashBottom line, summary: Smashmute much better. It’s a touch more expensive, but worth every penny for the better build quality alone.Advice! You’ll say, okay, I buy all that, but how will I know when the commercial is over and the movie, show, sports event restarts with Smashmute, watch the TV for 2.5 minutes straight!? A workaround that works for me: Turn on your TV regular volume from TV very low, like 5 setting, and the TV sound out of your sound bar or surround sound system at regular listening volume, say vol 20. Now train the Smashmute for your soundbar. Boom! When you hit the Smashmute, your soundbar mutes, but a small amount of sound still comes out of the TV itself, so you can sort of overhear it while you putter about or use IPad. It’s uncanny, you’ll know when the loud commercial is over almost instinctively. This works wellBut, even without the suggestion above, you’ll know to smash it after a couple minutes (just as easy if not easier than poking the Daddy 5-6 times and guessing commercials that way; my friend actually finds himself looking up with the Daddy when he thinks it should have restarted the sound and it hasn’t yet....lol...almost like second guessing a kitchen cooking timer....lol).Clear winner, Smashmute. Get those double-loud commercials silenced. Hope this helps someone, esp you sports addicts. Perfect gift. Bye now. .