Are Harmony remotes worth it?

[DaDude]

I have quite a bit of electronics in my living room (TV, DVD player, DVD recorder, Blu-ray player and a receiver) and obviously, it's crazy to have five separate remotes in order to control each one of them. So, I use a standard universal remote, but it has such limitations. I've heard that Harmony remotes are good and can do pretty much anything you want with almost any electronic out there.

I see this listed at Best Buy's website for $50:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/logitech-harmony-665-10-device-universal-remote-black/5852832

Is it worth the $50 to invest in a remote like this? It will be great if I can buy a remote and can control all five of my devices with that one remote without any limitations.

Edited May 17, 2019 by DaDude

[Brandon H Supervisor]

completely; I have a 650 at home and it works great. Even have a floor fan programmed to it just because it's convenient

 

I love that you can program it so it turns on/off a set of devices at once. One button click to turn on your TV, Sound system/bar, cablebox/androidbox all at once

 

it's super easy to program with the Harmony Center program on your PC too

[shockz]

Unless you really need a screen on a remote, there are cheaper universals that basically do the same thing. You might only miss a few hot key options.

 

I'd say not worth it.

 

Outside of television and the equipment connected to it, google assistant takes care of the rest of what this remote would do for me.

[DaDude]

1 minute ago, shockz said:

Unless you really need a screen on a remote, there are cheaper universals that basically do the same thing. You might only miss a few hot key options.

That's exactly why I've bought like 5 Universal remotes in the past and now they're trash. I need a remote that will control all my devices without missing any keys.

[tsupersonic]

I have the Harmony without the screen, got it for like $20. It works really well, and have these devices programmed: TV, Receiver, and Xbox One. The remote is easy to program via software. 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Just now, DaDude said:

That's exactly why I've bought like 5 Universal remotes in the past and now they're trash. I need a remote that will control all my devices without missing any keys.

that's part of the convenience of the Harmony Center; it programs by server side database on Logitech's end. they keep their database updated well so even as new devices come out you can program to them cleanly without missing/wrong keys.

you can even manually program it via the IR on other remotes if you need to

[shockz]

4 minutes ago, DaDude said:

That's exactly why I've bought like 5 Universal remotes in the past and now they're trash. I need a remote that will control all my devices without missing any keys.

Hot keys as in it sets the volume, turns on the proper input, all in one press. Thats'a hotkey. Universal remotes that cost $10 bucks can control all your devices.

[LaP]

21 minutes ago, shockz said:

Unless you really need a screen on a remote, there are cheaper universals that basically do the same thing. You might only miss a few hot key options.

 

I'd say not worth it.

 

Outside of television and the equipment connected to it, google assistant takes care of the rest of what this remote would do for me.

The cheaper ones usually don't come with a software letting you easily configure the remote.

 

I tried a cheap remote and it was a pain in the ass to configure. I almost thought i broke my TV as it was stuck on a black screen after pressing a button on the remote. I had to unplug my TV and re-plug it.

 

14 minutes ago, shockz said:

Hot keys as in it sets the volume, turns on the proper input, all in one press. Thats'a hotkey. Universal remotes that cost $10 bucks can control all your devices.

Yes and no. The one i bought certainly had trouble controlling my QLED TV out of the box. I disposed of it in the trash can after breaking it on my lap out of frustration and bought a Harmony Ultimate One used.

 

[edit]

 

To answer the question i'm not sure the 665 support the desktop software or if it's programmed differently than the higher end models but if it does support the desktop software i would say it's worth the 50$ specially if you have higher end recent electronics which from my own experience are not very well supported by the cheap aio remotes.

Edited May 17, 2019 by LaP

[DaDude]

3 minutes ago, LaP said:

The cheaper ones usually don't come with a software letting you easily configure the remote.

 

I tried a cheap remote and it was a pain in the ass to configure.

As an owner of 5 cheap remotes, I can tell you they are very limited. First, some were not compatible with some of my devices. Second, the devices they were compatible with were limited. For example, it would control the DVD player, but there was no "setup"  or "eject" button. So when I wanted to go to the setup menu on the player or eject the disc via the remote, I had to take out the DVD player remote and put batteries in. Real pain. And the ones that you could add keys via IR only had limited memory. So, when I exceeded the memory limit, I was out of luck and couldn't program additional keys.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

29 minutes ago, LaP said:

To answer the question i'm not sure the 665 support the desktop software or if it's programmed differently than the higher end models but if it does support the desktop software i would say it's worth the 50$ specially if you have higher end recent electronics which from my own experience are not very well supported by the cheap aio remotes.

the 665 is just the 650 (which I have) with a rechargeable battery; it configures through USB on the software just like the higher-end models

[LaP]

12 minutes ago, Brandon H said:

the 665 is just the 650 (which I have) with a rechargeable battery; it configures through USB on the software just like the higher-end models

Then imo it's worth 50$.

 

The cool thing is sometime it can enable functions that are not supported by the device's own remote. On my last pvr you could browse the TV guide by day. Like next day. Previous day. This function was not on the official remote of the device. You had to press a yellow button to show a menu and then another button to select next or previous day. But actually the pvr would accept a single ir command to do next or previous day and the Harmony software did support it while the official remote of the pvr did not. That was cool as it was very cumbersome to have to press two buttons to go the the next or previous day instead of just one.

Edited May 17, 2019 by LaP

[shockz]

Sounds like DaDude has already made his mind up...

[DaDude]

1 minute ago, shockz said:

Sounds like DaDude has already made his mind up...

Well no. If Harmony remotes are going to have the same problem (i.e. no "eject" function on the remote), then there's no way I'm spending $50. So that's why I started this thread... to find out if Harmony remotes will have the same issue.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

15 hours ago, DaDude said:

Well no. If Harmony remotes are going to have the same problem (i.e. no "eject" function on the remote), then there's no way I'm spending $50. So that's why I started this thread... to find out if Harmony remotes will have the same issue.

No issue like that. You can adjust what button does what too freely both the buttons on the screen and the remote buttons are fully configurable/remappable through the app

[Dutchie64]

Still using a Harmony One I bought many moons ago.
But yes, these things are worth the money. And yes, you night skip out on one of those more rare buttons to do X on device Y.
There's some controls on my stereo remote I cannot program into the remote, but they are so 'set and forget' that I never missed them.

I find the comfort of using all of the regular commands of all my devices much more useful that having ALL buttons on a remote.
They're probably out there though, ones that you can program your every whim into it. But is that really necessary?

[Matthew S.]

Might be a good idea to start a thread at the logitech forums and list all your devices and the functions from their remotes that you would like to program and see if they can help you out in making your decision

https://community.logitech.com/s/topic/0TO31000000UKNpGAO/remotes-and-smart-home

[Steven P. Administrators]

You can map "Eject" to a button. I have the Harmony remote w/o screen and when it is setup right it is better than using 3 remotes to operate my receiver, tv and xbox one x  

[patseguin Global Moderator]

18 hours ago, DaDude said:

I have quite a bit of electronics in my living room (TV, DVD player, DVD recorder, Blu-ray player and a receiver) and obviously, it's crazy to have five separate remotes in order to control each one of them. So, I use a standard universal remote, but it has such limitations. I've heard that Harmony remotes are good and can do pretty much anything you want with almost any electronic out there.

I see this listed at Best Buy's website for $50:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/logitech-harmony-665-10-device-universal-remote-black/5852832

Is it worth the $50 to invest in a remote like this? It will be great if I can buy a remote and can control all five of my devices with that one remote without any limitations.

They used to be, but not so much anymore especially since you can't do Siri/Google voice search with them. For a long time, mine has gathered dust since my Apple TV remote turns on my TV & receiver.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

My experience is that Harmony is complete trash (I have a Harmony Hub, in the absence of something better), as it is all scene based and when switching between scenes things turn on and off when they don't have because Harmony is taking all the components to a resting state before moving to the desired one.

 

I'd avoid it if I had the choice.

[Sulphy]

I have had a few over the years, and couldnt imagine not having them. So easy to setup & use.. it took a couple of attempts to get it just right. 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

4 hours ago, Fahim S. said:

My experience is that Harmony is complete trash (I have a Harmony Hub, in the absence of something better), as it is all scene based and when switching between scenes things turn on and off when they don't have because Harmony is taking all the components to a resting state before moving to the desired one.

 

I'd avoid it if I had the choice.

I agree they should adjust that functionality but it's less of an issue if you don't use the hub models