There’s a reason why more people haven’t seen the next RedEye universal remote for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad before ThinkFlood makes an announcement: They’re in disguise.

This RedEye mini, which looks drastically different from the original RedEye, was concealed in a custom-molded enclosure, so it could be carried public without attracting attention. When not in use, you would think it was just a standard RedEye base station. Very clever.

The plastic case, which comes apart easily, looks just like the original RedEye base station. When you pry the case apart, you quickly realize that what you thought was a RedEye remote, doesn’t even have a circuit board. And then you see it clearly—the elusive, much-anticipated RedEye mini is lurking in the shadows.

To reassemble the case, all you have to do is place the RedEye mini inside bottom of the acrylic RedEye enclosure before popping the top back on. An ingenious solution to protect future designs from lookeyloos.

One of the best bits is that the case looks like the enclosure FOR the original RedEye base station. RedEye remote hardware is seen so often, that even though this one looks a little weird because the power supply and dock connector are missing, it wouldn’t normally attract any attention in the field.

In fact, if ThinkFlood developer Justin Nguyen had not accidentally lost his RedEye mini at Watch City Brewing on May 25/26, the whole scene would have easily been dismissed as just another oddball-waltham-software-developer who didn’t want to go home fore the evening without his favorite Linux server in tow.

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The Complete Lost RedEye mini Saga:

• This is ThinkFlood’s next iPhone, iPad, iPod touch remote—RedEye mini
• How ThinkFlood lost the RedEye mini
• How ThinkFlood conceals prototype RedEye minis