Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote with Color Touchscreen
by Logitech
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote with Color Touchscreen
Customer Review: Great item but not foolproof
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a great item that is by far better than a "typical" universal remote. It remembers a series of "activities" that turn on all equipment necessary for, say, watching tv, or watching a DVD, or listening to the radio, etc..
The drawbacks are few but affect my usage... First, I am using an older Plasma TV that only has one HDMI input and I want to use HDMI for both my Blue-Ray player and my cable box, so I purchased a HDMI "switch" which allows me to use up to 4 HDMI equipped pieces of equipment and it selects (either automatically as the equipment is powered on, or manually by buttons or by a small remote) the piece of equipment playing a signal.
Since my cable box is also a DVR it is always on, which means it is putting out a signal so the HDMI switch will select it by default, but if I turn on the BR/DVD it will switch to it, but if it doesn't see any new signals coming from it within several seconds it will switch back to the DVR which means I have to manually (physically by button, or by its remote) switch it back to the BR/DVD.
Why this is a problem with the Harmony is that when you tell the Harmony to "watch DVD" it first has to power on all the associated equipment (TV, DVD, Home Theater), it also has to select the correct input for the Home Theater and TV if you are using more than one for each. This all requires additional seconds which times out my HDMI switch and it goes back to the DVR/cable box. The biggest drawback to this is that although the Harmony can be programmed with over 100,000 different pieces of equipment, that list does not include HDMI Switches, so I am forced to get up or have a second remote laying around any way.
The other drawback is related to the extra time it takes the Harmony to turn all units on and select the correct input. It tells you when it is done on its color display but it requires you to point the remote for up to 15 seconds toward your equipment which takes some restraint to stop doing so, particularly for my wife who is both a creature of habit (point, click, and put the remote down) and impatient. For the first few weeks she has repeatedly told me the remote "isn't working right", when I try it works fine. When I observe her (when she doesn't realize it and isn't conscious of having to wait longer) she either puts the remote too early or turns away somewhat, interrupting the signal.
What this does is either doesn't turn on a piece of equipment or it is going through the inputs and stop on the wrong one because it lost the signal. The way the Harmony selects the input is not just simply enabling the input as the factory remote would, instead it has to "scroll through the list of inputs from the first to the last in order to select the proper input. What this means is, for example, my TV inputs are: Antenna, Cable, Input 1, Input 2, Component 1, Component2. I have to select "cable" for anything coming in on HDMI (games are set up on input 1 and component 1), but the Harmony has to make a couple of selections to get there through the menu; for example: it selects "Power" for the TV then "TV menu" then "input" from the main menu then has to scroll once past the default "antenna" to "cable". This is 4 steps that it has to do with a pause to give the TV itself enough time to bring up the next menu, so that is 4 commands just to set up the TV and may take 3-4 seconds itself (just estimating). If you pull away the remote or say, turn around when someone behind you asks a question and you turn to respond, this may stop the set up at any stage of the process confusing the remote operator who thinks the remote isn't working.
The last peeve I have that Logitech should address is that when you, for example, are finished watching a DVD and want to watch regular TV/cable, if you just switch your activity to "watch TV" from "watch DVD" the remote will give commands to power on the TV and radio which are already on, which means, since the power command is on/off, it will shut off the TV and Radio when it thinks it is turning it on. And if you go and turn them back on manually (without the Harmony) they didn't switch inputs because they were "off" when the Harmony gave the commands. So you have to turn everything "off" then select "watch TV".
Although these seem like drawbacks, once you get used to having to be more diligent at waiting longer when pointing the remote at your entertainment center, there isn't a better remote out there, this is it, and it will definitely make things nicer and more convenient if you can train yourself or your family to have a little patience (~10 seconds more) when using the remote.
Would I buy this again? yes. Would I tell a friend to buy it? I would, explaining these caveats in the process.
Customer Review: Excellent concept; very, very, VERY poor execution and support
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought my Harmony One in October, '09. Like almost every other new customer, once I went thru the challanging on-line set-up, my wife and I immediately fell head-over-heels in love with the H-One. It was indeed worth every penny as well as every one of those 5 stars, that is until...
This January (less than 90 days after warranty expiration) I began getting a low battery msg on the LCD screen upon lifting it from the charging cradle. Everything still worked great, but not wanting to spend $20 on a replacement battery (the OEM battery wasn't even 18 months old!) before trying to troubleshoot a likely software glitch, I went on the Harmony website, hooked the remote to my computer, and exactly following the instructions on the tech support section of the site, upgraded the original software to the current version (7.7). The process went without incident and completed in only a few minutes, but on unplugging the USB cable as instructed, my unit immediately ceased functioning. Now, when removed from the cradle, it flashes two screens (Welcome and then the Help screen), then the "white screen of death" reported by so many other customers, before going totally dark and unresponsive. Replacing it in the charger and then removing it again exactly repeats this sequence.
I called Logitech Support - in India - and, managing to talk my way past giving my credit card number first, described what happened to my remote while plugged into the Logitech site. During this 2+ hr support call, I spoke with 3 different tech reps ("Level 1 Support", "Level 2 Support", and even "Level 3 Support"). After repeating my experience to each in turn, I answered numerous questions before each support rep finally told me my problem was unique, and then offered to solve it for me BY SELLING ME A NEW ONE FOR $125.00!!! When I pressed for another option, I was told that, because Logitech doesn't have a repair facility for these products,there WERE no other options. I could either buy another Harmony One under a "special one-time offer" of 50% off MSRP or else I was out of luck. When asked if a replacement would be a new unit in a factory sealed carton, and what warranty if any might be included, the tech rep said he'd never been asked that before and didn't know the answers. Completely unacceptable. Following my final conversation (Level 3), I was admittedly out of patirnce when the rep suggested I take photos of the handset's "misbehaviors" as they occured, and e-mail them to Tech Support so they might study them and see if any additional options might exist after all.
When I had failed to respond by e-mailing the requested photos after several days (I don't own a digital camera), I rec'd a follow-up e-mail repeating the photo request. Still angry, I responded with an offer to ship the whole &%$#& thing back to them and they could keep it and study it first hand for as long as they'd like. First, however, I wanted an RA# to get it into Receiving, and a will-call tag paying for return shipping back to them. It's been 4 days since I made the offer and I have still received no acknowledgement, despite specific mention by me that they would be under no obligation to fix, replace, or even return it to me. Guess they'd rather sit around and look at pretty photos on their computer screens.
So, if you are considering purchase of one of one of these, and you have not yet been discouraged by the negative customer reviews on Amazon, C-NET, etc., then do yourself a huge favor and put the charge on American Express or any other card that offers you an additional one year warranty protection. There is a high probability you will thank me, as the number of owner complaints about out-of-warranty failures between months 13 and 24 is significant. Don't forget that, while Logitech provides a 12 month warranty, they maintain NO repair facility for Harmonys, so if the customer can't be coached thru fixing a problem themselves, the out of warranty Harmony One becomes a very expensive paperweight. Regardless of whether the failure is hardware or software based, something major or just a small adjustment, if it's 366 days or more since your purchase, and you have no extended warranty, your unit is good for nothing.
Given my experiences, the number of similar just-out-of-warranty failures reported, and the cost of the Harmony One, you have to ask yourself if you'll be satisfied paying $125 - $160 to replace your remote control every 16 to 18 months. That's way too much for me, regardless of how much I like its features when it does work.
Customer Review: Big improvement over an earlier model
Summary: 5 Stars
Years ago I had another Harmony high end programmable remote. It did not do a really good job of replacing many of my individual remotes, and eventually fell out of use. After a couple of years of sitting in the drawer (no batteries, so it wasn't corrosion) I took it out for a revisit, and it was almost dead. it would do everything but actually broadcast a remote command.
Recently I decided to give the concept and the company a second try, and I've had a much better experience with the Harmony One.
Set up:
Set up is easier than it was with my previous unit. However, if the person setting up the remote is not intimately familiar with how their home theater system (and associated components) are integrated, it will be confusing. The setup is essentially three sets of operations. In the first operation, you define what equipment you have, by model number. In the second operation, you help the set up software figure out what to do about components it does not easily recognize. This can involve having the Harmony One "learn" every button from a remote, in extreme cases. The final operation is to define Activities, such as "Watch a DVD", "Watch TV", or "Listen to CDs".
For most of my components, the set up software recognized everything correctly. For three components, it did not, and so had me send a small set of commands to the Harmony One, from which it was able to figure out what set of commands to use with that remote. For my WD Live TV unit, I had to fudge the process. In that case I told the setup that I had a Media PC remote, and then manually programmed the WDTV remote buttons into the Harmony One. Luckily the WDTV remote has few buttons, so that did not take long.
Adaptability:
This remote has the most comprehensive set of buttons, and the best layout, that I have ever seen on a universal remote. For simple devices like a DVD or Blu-ray player, or a receiver, you'll never have any problem with missing functions. My DirecTV receiver was somewhat of a different animal. It has several command buttons that don't appear on the Harmony One. However, the setup/remote did a VERY good job of putting the additional functions on the touch screen, and in a very intelligently laid out priority. I was impressed. Not so successful was its handling of my Panasonic DVR purchased many years ago. There are a lot of extra buttons for recording, editing, labeling, and dubbing that the Harmony One just can't handle. I'll have to use the "real" remote when using the Panasonic for anything but basic viewing.
Usability:
Almost without exception, this remote has been as easy to use, and in the case of some DirecTV remote functions, easier to use than the original remotes. The only time I get into trouble is if I forget to keep the remote pointing in the right direction until it has turned everything on or off that it needs to. There is a little lag in commands when it is doing things with more than one device in a sequence, but the lag is no longer than if you had to put one remote down, and then find, pick up, and aim a second remote. Just be a bit patient with it ... you are actually still being saved time and convenience.
The only frustration I had with it was in an incident in fast forwarding a show recorded on the DirecTV DVR the other evening. The remote seemed to stack up too many commands and just went crazy. It alternated between skipping to the end and the beginning of the program, and every time I got it close to where we needed to be, it went off on its own yet again. I finally just pointed it in the other direction and used the DirecTV remote to get back on track. This was a unique situation. I haven't had that problem recur.
In conclusion, there are two things you need to be aware of when buying and using this remote:
1. The person who sets it up must be very knowledgeable about the home theater set up, how things work together, and what devices are input to other devices by which specific connections.
2. The user must be aware that they need to keep the remote pointed in the correct direction until it has finished its work. They also need to be familiar with how the Help process works, in case a device is not "on" that should be after an Activity has been selected. The Help process is not complicated, but it does need to be experienced by someone who is paying attention to what it is doing, and why.
Customer Review: Not a good fit to DirecTV-based home theater
Summary: 3 Stars
I am very accustomed to touch-screen, programmable remotes: I once spent many hours getting the programming of a Phillips Pronto just right, and that remote served me well for almost a decade. When I completely revamped my home theater setup, I retired the now-shabby Pronto and assumed that I could use this Harmony One to replace it as the Boss of five devices. This did not turn out well.
Let me say first that the Harmony One is a sleek, ergonomic device that feels good in the hand and looks good on the table. And it essentially does what it is advertised to do. The online setup software is mediocre but usable. So -- why is mine now for sale on eBay? Because it is not a good fit for constant, heavy use of a DirecTV setup, and it lacks the general programmability that would let me make it good.
The first problem that I found, once I got used to using the DirecTV HR24 DVR with its native remote, is that its interface requires frequent use of the Back button to step backward through levels of menu. The Harmony One has equivalent hard buttons for most of the DVR functions but it does not have a real Back button. One is created by default on the second or third "page" of the touch-screen soft buttons, and using the rather awkward and unhelpful tools at myremotesetup.com I was able to bring the Back button onto the first "page."
But that's not good enough for a button that you use almost as often as Select/Enter. You can operate the hard buttons one-handed, but the only way to use the soft buttons (touch screen icons) is to hold the remote with one hand and tap with a finger of the other. So navigating the deep menu structure of the DirecTV DVR is always a two-handed operation, and requires actually taking your eyes off the TV and looking down at the remote in order to hit that icon.
Other important buttons with DirecTV are the four colors Red Green Yellow and Blue, which change meaning at different points (the Samsung TV and blu-ray player also use Red, Green, Yellow and Blue buttons). These also have to be soft buttons on the touch screen. When I created an Activity for Watch TV, the Harmony voluntarily produced colorful red, green, blue and yellow button icons for the first page of the Activity, mapped to the DVR. Great! But when I go to the buttons for the individual Devices, there are only generic brown icons with the words "Red," "Green," etc. I couldn't find any way to get the custom icons into the Device's button pages. That means that one has to actually focus one's eyes on the remote and READ the words to make sure you are hitting "Red".
There is room for only six soft buttons per "page" and getting to a button on another page requires dabbing a finger at the left or right edge of the screen to scroll. So any additional functions are at least two finger-pokes away; now you've had your eyes off the TV for several seconds of dabbing. If there's a way to create or upload one's own icons I didn't find it. Based on other people's forum postings it is possible to configure the exact delays between steps of an activity, and possible to create macros of up to five steps. In two hours of poking around the web-based interface I never actually saw those abilities, although I don't deny they are there. The Logitech software is dismal to use, right out of the 90s. In this day of slick smartphone interfaces, it should be possible to configure a sequence or an activity by dragging items into place on a timeline or onto a virtual screen, or by clicking on the buttons of a virtual Harmony on-screen. Instead the UI is text-based and involves endless clicking and reading fine print. In general, this lovely sleek thing hasn't one-tenth the programmability of the decade-old Pronto -- and the Pronto programming software had a graphical UI!
There are other minor annoyances. The hard buttons have a definite and quite loud CLICK; well, maybe that's a sign of quality but after an evening of CLICKing one's spouse can get irked. The touch screen is not as sensitive as it should be, often requiring two or more pokes to scroll a page, for instance.
In the end I found that the $15 DirecTV DVR remote can be programmed to control the TV and receiver quite well, and I'll use the native remotes for the remaining devices, which are low-use.
Customer Review: I like my 550... I LOVE my One.
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had a Harmony 550 for a couple of years now, which I use to control my basement home theater setup (Mitsubishi projector, Sony Blu-Ray player and A/V receiver, Toshiba HD-DVD player, Samsung HDTV tuner, Motorola cable box, and an XBox 360 -- all sources mounted on a rack behind the screen wall, controlled via IR extender system). I still really like that remote -- it was intuitive to set up and operate, had pretty good aesthetics and hand feel, and has been rock-solid reliable ever since I got it set up. Plus, it handles a diverse array of devices with aplomb.
Late last year, I overhauled my bedroom A/V setup and I knew I was on the verge of creating a new A/V setup for the living room. These would be simpler than the basement HT, sure, but would still involve multiple sources per display (with the living-room sources located on the same rack as the basement ones -- so good, reliable operation is important since you can't look at the devices to confirm power on/off, etc). I knew I'd want another Harmony remote, hopefully one I could set up to share between the two locations.
My search originally led back to the 550. However, it was now discontinued, and the remaining units I could find were priced well above what I had paid for the one I have. I was aware of the One, but I figured its price was beyond what I was willing to spend -- I checked Amazon anyway, and imagine my surprise when I found it was ~$100 less than my local stores. I had to go for it.
All that background aside, I'll now get to the point. Since the 550 is what I knew prior to the One, I'm going to treat it as sort of my benchmark.
I like my Harmony 550 -- but I LOVE my One. First, and most importantly, it doesn't have any less functionality than the 550 (unlike the 510 that supposedly "replaced" the 550). In fact, it actually has some additional function (TV channel favorites, for example). It supports plenty of devices (15). It has the great soft buttons (except now on a TOUCHSCREEN - awesome). And, its aesthetics and ergonomics are substantially better than the 550. Setup is done via the tried-and-true web-based interface, so it was very familiar to me.
Some additional positives about the One -- it has a rechargeable battery with a charging cradle, so no need to periodically replace/recharge NIMH AAA batteries like I do with the 550. Some additional handy hard buttons (which can of course be custom-programmed for each activity and/or device). Better location of transport keys, and they can now be distinguished by feel. Backlight comes on whenever the remote is picked up (versus only after a several hour delay on the 550).
Dislikes -- relative to the 550, none; I honestly feel the One is superior in every way. In general -- there are a few areas where I see room for improvement. First, it'd be nice if you weren't locked into 3 activities per page on the touchscreen... an option to select between a few different configurations (maybe 3, 4, or 6 for example) would be welcome. Second, when using it for two different rooms, you either have to power off everything in room A before starting an activity in room B, or remember to re-start the activity from room A before returning there (if you re-launch the activity while in line-of-sight for that room, chances are things will get out of sync, unless you've got a miracle system with no toggles - just discrete commands for everything). I can't really demerit the remote for this, since it isn't designed nor advertised for multi-room use -- but I would give Harmony HUGE thanks if they could add multi-room capability via a software update (basically allow the user to set up a simultaneity matrix for activities). And last, but not least, when using TV channel favorites I find that the remote sends the required three number presses more slowly than I can send them by manually keying in the numbers (even with inter-key delay set to 0 ms) -- likewise for sequences I've set up that navigate thru menus with directional keypresses. It's a nit for me, though, because it doesn't hinder functionality -- ultimately the favorites and sequences still work.
So, in a nutshell... great remote. Buy one (or two, if Harmony never decides to implement my wonderful multiroom suggestion :D )!