February 21st, 2007
by Michael Swanberg
Some time ago I invested the $250 in a Logitech Harmony 880 Universal Remote. At first I was skeptical, but all in all it is a really nice remote.
The absolute best, and in some ways worst, thing about the Harmony is that you don’t program it like other universal remotes. There’s no looking up codes and trying different sets of codes to see what works. It’s all USB.
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That’s right, you simply plug the Harmony into a PC, install a little software, and you’re off to the races. The software was very easy to set and run up the first time as it is basically a wizard-style Q&A thing. It asks you what hardware you have, TV, tuner, DVD player, etc. You don’t have to know the codes, but you do have to know the serial numbers of your A/V components, so you will need a paper and pencil and some time behind the stereo cabinet on your hands and knees.
Then the software asks you several questions about how you do things in your A/V procedures. Like, do you use the tuner for sound when watching a DVD or do you use the TV’s speakers? What setting do you place the TV on to watch DVDs? Etc.
Once all of this is done, the remote gets programmed with several “activities” such as “Watch My TV” and “Watch a DVD”. When an activity is selected, the Harmony sets up all the A/V equipment how it needs to be for the activity, setting the TV on the correct input, turning on the tuner if it is used, turning on the DVD player if necessary, etc. Then the various buttons on the remote are programmed accordingly. So, say, for instance, you have DirecTV. When watching TV, the channel up and down buttons will change the channel on the satellite receiver instead of the TV. If you use a tuner for sound then the volume buttons are slaved to it.
Furthermore, there are eight “soft” keys that get set to do a variety of functions particular to the current activity. For instance, instead of having an “angle” button, a soft button becomes “angle” for DVD watching. Or for widescreen TV owners, there is an “aspect” soft button. Essentially, there is a small color LCD screen on the Harmony that the soft buttons surround that tells what each button does. And there can be many pages of these so you are not limited to eight.
There are some shortcomings to the remote that I have noticed. First, it doesn’t always know where your equipment is set. Say that you have been tinkering around with your TV and changed it from Video1 to Video2. Well, if your TV, like mine, doesn’t have a Video1 button but rather has an input button that cycles through the various inputs, the Harmony will think it is on Video1 and will “press” the input button an incorrect number of times. Or along these lines, it may turn off some components that it thinks are already off. This is more a shortcoming in the A/V component than the Harmony. Honestly, in this day and age, why every A/V component doesn’t have methods to go directly where you want is beyond me. The Harmony has a help function that can easily get you where you need to be, though. It basically turns things off until you tell it that everything is off and then it knows where it is again.
The clock on the Harmony doesn’t keep good time. Mine is a good 15 minutes off and I updated it just a few months ago. And the only way to set the clock is by updating the remote by plugging it into the PC. It would be nice if either the clock was more accurate or if it could be reset just on the remote itself instead of having to plug it into the PC and update it.
The battery doesn’t last very long in the Harmony. It has a rechargeable battery built-in that gets recharged while in its cradle. Of the three bars in the battery indicator, it will go down to just 1 bar of juice in only a few hours. Best to keep it in the cradle whenever possible.
The cradle doesn’t make a good connection with the Harmony to recharge it. I usually have to fiddle with the remote in the cradle to get it to make a good connection.
It would be nice if the software were more intuitive. It is pretty good, but since reprogramming a universal remote is an infrequent occurrence, it can be a chore to get back up-to-speed with how the software works. Adding or removing components and activities can be a little unintuitive as well. Finally, once the remote is reprogrammed by the software, it asks you to make sure that it is working correctly. If the software were intuitive, then there would be no need to verify that it is set up properly. About the only error that could occur at this point would be if the wrong components were set up.
It would also be nice if the software were 100% web-based and online. Since programming a remote is an infrequent thing, most hardcore geeks like myself will have reformatted their hard drive and will thus have to reinstall the software (find the CD), which then takes you online, which then installs more software, etc. Making this a complete online application would save a lot of hassle.
But aside from all of that, it really is a nifty remote. It’s a pretty good form factor, although some of the buttons are tough to press for ham-fisted blokes like myself. As well, since the database of components is online, it is always up-to-date.
In my most recent move, I lost the power cord to one of my DVD players. Due to this, until I locate that cord, that player is just a big paperweight. But the Harmony didn’t mind me setting up my Xbox360 as a DVD player. It sets up all the controls to work perfectly just as though the Xbox were a regualar DVD player. What’s more, it mapped the A, B, X, and Y buttons to soft buttons, so I can do pretty much anything on the Xbox with the Harmony. As well, there is a button to open the tray! The Xbox controllers don’t even have that!
All in all, the Logitech Harmony 880 Universal Remote is a wonderful little gadget. There are some shortcomings that would be nice to get hammered out, but it is a definite recommended product, if you don’t mind shelling out the cash.
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