Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote with Color Touch Screen by Logitech
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Digital camera reviews of Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote with Color Touch Screen
Digital camera Review: A great upgrade from an 880
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had an 880 for several years. The 880 was okay but not great. It had several flaws; the worst was that you had to look at the remote to use it.
When I saw the first pictures of the Harmony One, It looked to me that Logitech had fixed the problems. So I ordered one as soon as it was available.
To be honest, I was expecting a lot from this remote. Surprisingly, it has exceeded my expectations. It took less than five minutes from opening the box to having the remote programmed (thanks to the software using my 880 settings). The button lay out is great. But the screen and they way it works is fantastic. I wasn't expected such a pretty LCD with a touch screen. It really raised the bar of how a great universal remote should work.
The bottom line is I love it, my wife loves it (she hated the 880) and my kids love it.
So it's clearly a winner.
Digital camera Review: A little tough to program, but worth the effort
Summary: 5 Stars
The literature says it should take about a half an hour to program this device. That is a little optimistic. I had a great deal of difficulty in getting the remote to change input signals on my Samsung 40 LCD HDTV so I could watch blu-ray dvds. After spending several hours in frustration, I called Logitech hotline. Surprise! Not only did I speak to someone in America (all due respect to our overseas brethren), who could speak English, he had my problem fixed remotely in minutes!
Once you get this baby up and running, there's nothing like it. I especially like the fact that you can program your favorite channels with icons so as to make channel surfing so much easier. There is one idiosyncracy, however. I have an LG bd390 blu-ray player, which allows me to stream Netflix and other services to my TV. In order to get back to "Home" on the menu, you have to go to "devices" then "DVD" in order to get the full set of button controls - the touch screen that automatically appears does not have all available options. It took a bit of fooling around with the buttons before I fiqured that out.
Nevertheless, this is an awesome remote. A bit pricey, but it will control any device you want it to (even an old Technics tape player I have circa 1991). It's sleek, comfortable, and lights up in the dark making operation in a darkened room (my preferred setting) a breeze. Buttons are also distinct, which helps a lot.
If you decide to make the plunge for a quality univeral remote that can do it all (albeit with a little effort upfront) spring for this model. It will satisfy!
Digital camera Review: A lot of potential, but not quite up to snuff
Summary: 3 Stars
The Harmony One has a LOT going for it: fairly ergonomic layout of buttons, really cool touch screen color LCD that's customizable, etc. The ability to have on-screen buttons with graphic network logos is especially nice.
Unfortunately, 2 fatal flaws led me to return to remote. First, there was a very noticeable time lag between when I'd press a button and when my Comcast DVR would respond. In contrast, my Comcast-provided remote responds much more quickly. I spent hours tweaking the settings on the Harmony to minimize the time lag, but it was still slower than my current remote.
Second, I had to keep attaching and detaching the remote to my PC to make each successive programming change as I tried to eliminate the lag. I think Logitech should let you change the device settings using a special "programming" mode on the remote; that way you could tweak the settings without having to keep using your PC. The PC would still be used to download the programming info for your audio/video devices, but wouldn't be necessary for making the more generic remote adjustments.
Finally, on a more positive note, Logitech even has the programming info for my $40 space heater in their online database. So I was able to program the Harmony to control my space heater. But alas, I'm back to using the heater's remote since I've returned the Harmony.
Digital camera Review: A must have for all A/V enthusiast
Summary: 5 Stars
I just purchased this remote (10/2010) and have to admit that it's all that I wished for ...and more. Being an experienced A/V geek with a large dedicated home theater room, I had been using Sony's touch screen remotes over the last 12 years or so. When it comes to programming activities and macros, these remotes had 84 page user guides! So no easy task to program. But with this Harmony, wow! Just follow step-by-step procedures with the software loaded on your computer (cd included with the remote) and you can easily set this baby to operate turn on/off operations of any basic/intermediate systems. The options to personlize are also there for the more adventurous but all in all, still quite simple to ''fine-tune" to a pretty complete do-it-all remote. I even downloaded logos of my favorite channels from Google and then loaded them onto the remote's screen for easy ''press the logo" and the remote instantly tunes it in.
illiminating unwanted screen soft buttons was also an easy process, leaving me with just the ones I'm gonna use 99% of the time. The remote will match all of the hard buttons with the ones from your unit, but still gives you the opportunity to change any of them to better suit your own tastes/habits. Wonderful! Since the Harmony One I purchased was a recent production version, I haven't had a single glitch while programming or setting it up. Most likely, it has all of the recent updates loaded right-in, so everything worked just as advertized.
Bottom line? Should of done this a long time ago. Now, what do I do with my Sony 3100 touch screen? Perhaps use it as a paper weight...
Digital camera Review: A must have!
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent remote to program. Have all 7 components programmed for various functions. A must have for home theatre users. Easy enough that anyone can use it. Worth the cash with all the time saved on programming. Took all of 5 minutes to program with minimal tweeking that took less than 10 minutes to complete. Easy charging and back lighting make for ease of use at night as remote senses motion. Also no more wasting batteries!