morficus Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 The Logitech Harmony remotes are a line of universal remotes. What seperates these remotes from the rest 2 main things: - Activity based remote (as opose to device based): this means that you can set up activities (such as "Watch TV" or "Play Xbox 360) and have your enviroment ready with the touch of a button. For example: by pressing "Watch TV", the remote will do the following: |- turn on your TV and set it to the right video input |- turn on your cable box |- turn on your AV recivier and set it to the right video input |- adjust your lighting system All of this with just the touch of a button. - The huge database that logitech has. Since you program the remote by conecting to a USB port on your PC, there is not punching in codes nor individually learning keys. Simply indicate the make and model.. and chance are it's on the on-line database. What's in the box - Harmony 360 remote x 1 - USB cable x 1 - Logitech Harmony Remote Software x 1 - Manual (and advertisements) x 1 - AAA batteries x 8 (4 come in the remote, plus 4 replacements) Initial opinion To be perfectly honest, I was ecstatic when I got my remote in the mail. Harmony Remotes have a great reputation for being the almost perfect universal remote. The only concern I has was... "Will it really replace the 4 remotes in my living room and still maintain the functionality?" The answer is YES! I was really happy to see that they provide batteries (and replacements) with the unit. Not even generic ones.. but Duracell batteries! Device construction The remote does not feel flimsy at all. I weighs less than my other remotes, but feel really well made. Most of the buttons are rubber, while the ones around the OK button are hard plastic. Every single key is back lite, as well as the LCD. The reverse side has a set of ribs that mold nicely to your fingers. The back side also has a semi-hard rubber coating, I'm guessing so it wont scratch your coffee table. Setup and installation Software installation was very simple. Pop in the CD, and the rest is automated. Windows XP SP2 detected the remote and installed the drivers even before the software to manage it was installed. The 1st time you run the software manager, you'll need to create an account. This will give you access to logitech's GIGANTIC database of electronic devices. This database is one of the main reasons Harmony Remotes have been so popular. Logitech has done a good job collecting device information (from TV's, to DVD's, consoles.. all the way to light controllers, AV selectors and even a Media Center PC) Programing your devices Once the account is crated, a little Wizard will walk you thought the initial configuration. It will ask you a series of simple yet useful/important questions about the products you own. The wizard is very useful and will help you to configure all of your devices really quick. Not even 30min after opening the package, my remote was ready for action. For the basic user, they can stop here. The remote will be 100% functional. But if you like customizations, once you exit the first-time-setup wizard is where the real fun starts. Options are infinite! You can set from the name of the device/activity... all they way to the delay time between signals. It really does allow you to get as technical and nitty-gritty as you want. The manager also allows you to add/remove devices when ever you want. If you add a new device, you can also put it into an existing activity with out the need to re-create it. Everything can be renamed! Devices, Activities.. everything! So lets say that in place of "Watch TV", you want you remote LCD to say "Look at stupid-box". Or if you have multiple TV's and you are using the remote to control multiple rooms, you can actually say "Living room TV" or "Bedroom TV". I find this a nice feature, since I first set "Pwn n00bs" as the activity name to start up the Xbox 360 :p But the software is not perfect, and Logitech is aware of that. For this reason, they also allow you to change how each individual key behaves; just in case something is missing. If you can not find the appropiet button on the keypad to add it to, there is the option to create new options on the LCD display. So you can make as many custom buttons you like The remote does this a lot. Most of the functions for each individual are in the LCD screen. This is nice, since they are stuff that you don't need all the time - like color settings and stuff like that. The down side of this... is that there could be 9 screens of commands.. and to find the one you want.. you'll need to look thought each. The back end of the remote also has a learning port, just in case your device is not in Logitechs database. If this is the case, when adding a new devices, the manager will ask you to point the original remote to the back-end of the Harmony remote and press a few keys (I haven't had to do this with any of my stuff, so I don't know how well that works) In about 1.5 - 2 hours... I has my remote fully customized and haven't had to touch it since :D When I first went to test my remote... I hit the "Play Xbox 360" activity. Everything worked... but one thing... but receiver did not go to the out input. By hitting the 'Help' button on the remote, the problem was solved and I have not had this ever again. Pros - Activity based remote. One-touch is nice - Allows you to control each device individually as well - HUGE database of devices. - Lots of customizations - Simple programing - Actually gives you full control with 1 remote (no need for the rest) Cons - Price: goes for $130 retail. This can be solved with ebay. I got my for $79 (shipping included) - non-rechargeable batteries: newer (more expensive) Harmony models come with a dock that charges the batteries Bottom line / final thoughts Well made, easy to navigate and really easy and quick to setup/program. The only difference between this model and the 550 isthat the 360 model has built-in buttons to work with the Xbox. And they work GREAT. You do just about everything (but play games) on the Xbox with this remote. - download content - play movies - set up music This remote also answred my inital question. "Will it actaulyl replace all of my remotes?". The other 4 remotes are in the livingroom for the time being.. just in case. But I've been using the Harmony 360 for 6 days now, and have not had the need to use the old ones. Pictures! - - - A full view of the Harmony 360 Universal Remote. - The 'activies' and 'devies' tab from the remote manager. I didn't mention it above, but you can also re-arrange your activities. A nifty feature is you ask e Here is an example of how you can customize each invidual button and also add more to the LCD screen Hope this review is useful for you guys :yes: -morficus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tuffgong4 Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 review is great...I ordered mine from Buy.com on 12/21/2006 and am still waiting on it. I got the 20 dollars of 50 google checkout deal so I'm waiting for it because I don't want to lose the remote 78 dollars shipped. I can't wait to get it and set up all my stuff cause having 5 remotes is a headache...(If only buy would ship it, I've been fighting with them since right after xmas. they've changed my order number because the item says in stock but my order was stuck on "on order" I harassed them and now it's "sent to warehouse" but that's like 5 days now!!!!!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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