Logitech Harmony Universal Remote

The Logitech Harmony Universal Remote is an excellent choice. The design is sleek. A PC or Mac is required for programming. An internet connection is required for programming. A USB cable and CD are included. The PC version of the software has some quirks but works reasonably well.Harmony Models and PricingThe model I purchased was the Harmony 520. This is one of the lower end models. The retail prices range from a low of around $99 for the 520 to $249 for the 880 and finally $399 for the 890. The 520 has a small monochrome backlit LCD display and the 880 and 890 both have color displays. The 890 adds RF capability so you can control devices in another room. Harmony 520I purchased the 520 from a brick and mortar store so I could take it back if it didn't work out. For this I was willing to pay about $30 more than some of the lower cost okay sellers were charging. At this time, there is only a slight chance I will return it. The issue I have is software quality. More on that later. First, let's focus on what these devices do that is new and different.ActivitiesThe Harmony is task centric. If you want to watch tv, you hit "Activities" and "Watch TV" on the remote. The remote switches on your cable box and tv, then switches on your audio amplifier and vcr if required. If you want to listen to music, you hit "Activities" and "Listen to CD" or "Listen to FM" on the Harmony and it takes care of everything. The IR performance is strong. Mine worked from about 50 feet from my geponents. None of the factory remotes would work from that distance.Decent PC Software - But some aspects left a mediocre impression.When you buy the Harmony, you install the software then connect the remote to your pc or mac via usb cable. I have a pc and a mac but decided to use the pc, so I won't discuss the mac situation here. I can only say I hope the mac software is a little less quirky. It turns out the Harmony software is written in Java so it will be very similar on both Mac and PC. The install went smoothly and the pc recognized the remote. Upon launch, it asked me for the model of harmony I had. You would think it could have figured this out without my help. Logitech Login RequiredThe software asked me to create an account with Logitech. Why I need another internet login to remember just to program my remote is beyond me. Model NumbersI went ahead and registered and then it moved on to asking me to peer at the backs of all my geponents for the MODEL NUMBERS. This is where I can only say I hope Logitech rethinks their software SOON. Tearing apart an audio rack to find obscure model numbers on the back of geponents isn't my idea of "easy" setup. I managed to break a video cable during the process of digging for model numbers. Clearly this is something I would like to see changed. One thing I would suggest to try would be to skip model number entry and see if it offers to look things up some other way. I entered only wega for a Sony TV because I was NOT going to muscle a huge old-fashioned heavy tv out of it's cabinet just to look for a model number. The setup didn't find all the features of my tv, but it works well enough.Flawless SetupThe up side is that once I found the numbers, the setup proceeded flawlessly. The remote recongnized my cheap quasimodo brand geponents including my archaic jvc (highland appliance? even older?) receiver and sylvania (walmart special) vcr/dvd-rw. After setting up geponents, I was asked to set up actitivies. Again the software worked very well. More Software QuirksThere was one nagging flaw though. My screen is 1024 x 768 and the only way I could see then entire harmony software screen was to maximize the whole thing. Then there were the nested scrollbars. I spent quite a lot of time scrolling windows inside of windows to see all my settings. I would like to say the software was primitive because I had the low end model, but the software downloaded the latest patch from Logitech. This leads me to believe the version that supports the 880 and 890 is no better than the quirky stuff I am dealing with on my 520. I can only hope the mac version is better. Perhaps I will get a chance to try it later.Overall ImpressionI took back one of those $20 universal remotes when it failed to put my audio system into cd/fm/am modes and was not reconfigurable. The Harmony is very reconfigurable. After you're done with geponents and activities, it allows you to assign soft buttons and hard buttons to specific gemonly used functions. The neat thing here is that the Harmony is one remote in your hand and it's smart enough to direct volume to the stereo, channel up/down to the cable box without first hitting a hard button to let it know which device you want the gemand to go to. Would I spend extra for the color screen? Maybe. The soft buttons are limited to 4 choices, which on my modest system takes 25 screens. Yuck. On the color versions, the soft buttons appear to be able to handle up to 8 choices per screen. A huge difference. Don't get me wrong. The existing hard buttons cover a lot, but it's nice to have soft buttons for things the hard buttons don't do well. I don't use soft buttons that much, but I can imagine that as new devices gee out, I would rather assign soft buttons to them than shell out bucks for another universal remote with hard buttons for the new features, ie ipod mediadrive features I don't own yet. I set up three activities for the dvd-vcr gebo. I can watch vcr, watch dvd or play mp3 or audio cd's. It turns out the settings for the three are very similar, but there are subtle differences. I don't need disk menu buttons for watching a vhs tape. I don't need them for hearing an mp3 cd. I need the tv on so I can browse the folders of an mp3 cd, but I might elect to leave it off for an audio cd.Bottom LineI regemend this product if you have a geplex situation. You can get away with a $20 generic model for a simple setup, but the Harmony handles geplex situations well enough that the simple models don't deserve serious consideration. The down side is the price and the quirky software. I would consider buying an Ipaq pocket pc as an alternative to the $250 or $400 models but the $100 model is a decent value for my geplex home theater/dvd-rw/audio/cable situation.