Be Excellent To Each Other

I've used the Logitech Harmony 885 for the last 5 years. I get the same problem with them each time in that the volume and other high use buttons end up wearing out and becoming unresponsive.

Was wondering what the best model is these days, is Logitech still the best? Or are there other companies doing these?

Any advice would be greatly received!

Perhaps worth knowing right now if you are looking at spending a chunk of change on a remote anyway is that the Wii U remote thingy is apparently going to function as one too. Whether it'll be any good or not I have absolutely no idea.

OK cheers, I wasn't planning to spend more than £100 or so if I could help it

I love my Harmony One.

Thats looking to be the best option, there is the 900 but I don't really need RF.

Oh hey the bottom one on this page look real...

CHEEKY MOTHERFUCKER

The Harmony One is a great remote once set up, and I love not having 4 or more remotes out on the coffee table (this is the same coffee table we sit on the floor and eat at, it's brown, and has a space underneath for keeping magazines). Setting up isn't too painful either, although rearranging the buttons on the touch screen is clunky.

The only real downside for me is that the tilt sensor rattles a little bit on mine. It's very minor but somehow cheapens the overall feel.

Does the One have hard buttons for the red, green, yellow and blue of a sky remote? I have a Harmony 755(I think) as it was the only one I could find that had that, and that was a deal breaker for me.

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electro ... d:13867929

I have that one. It has the coloured buttons.

No. That's a downside, admittedly. You either have to use the touchscreen or map other unused buttons to them -- I've pondered remapping the number buttons, as I very rarely switch channels that way.

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electro ... oduct.html

This is the bad boy that I have, apparently it is a 785.

If the newer ones are all touch screen I might push the boat out and get the 1100 as the screen is bigger

Has everyone got an all in one remote apart from me?

I've been through a lot of remotes in the past, including full touch screen ones. I can't recommend enough getting one with a lot of physical buttons. Touch screens play havoc with muscle memory, you pretty much always have to look at the remote to do anything.

Try one first, some people don't mind, but it drove me crazy.

I went for the mono screen one, because it's a remote, not a smart phone. You press a button then put it back down. Flash bastards

Be warned though, the "software" that logitech provide to program your remote is utterly fucking atrocious.

The Harmony 525 I bought from Grim... a few years back continues to work well and can do pretty much everything I need it to. I do sometimes find myself getting tempted by these fancy touch-screen jobbers though.

The only thing it could never do was communicate with my PS3, but since myp broke that I don't need to worry about that any more

You can manage a PS3

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002GGQLHM/? ... B002GGQLHM

However you would need a 1100 or 900 that do RF and these are £150-200

Wrong. That adapter is IR based so works with all Harmony remotes.

Oh ok Amazon were selling it in a bundle with a 900 so I thought it was RF

Were you successful in claiming against Royal Mail in the end?

I'm selling one of those now

Really? The Harmony or a touch screen jobby? Nah, I don't know why I'm interested. It's only because I've been reading this thread and that's the kind of guy I am.

Nope! Haven't heard a bean from them since I sent off the claim form with the photos.

I picked up a Harmony 650 last month and it's pretty lovely. A bit fiddly to set up, but that's almost entirely because it's so flexible that I want to keep tinkering to get it Just So.

Chase it up. They need to pay for what they did to us.

I can't be bothered, I'll just fix it and sell it on again

I won't tell you it's a Harmony 1000, then.

Is it on eBay? How much is it going for? Just out of interest like...

Spreadsheet at the ready, sir!

Yours for eighty quid if you want it.
I'll bring it to the cottage.

One of my 885's has just packed up, it won't send a signal to anything. Did firmware upgrades and even re added all the devices but its still down.

The other 885 is a bit older and the volume buttons are worn, I can control most of the stuff in the living room with it, but I've had to dig out the amp remote for volume.

I'm thinking of this now, costs £175 and reviews from people in the US that look to be controling their entire house with it are good. Most reviews also say how much better and faster than Harmonys this is.

http://www.uk-automation.co.uk/products ... ystem.html

You need to have an Iphone or Ipad as well which I do, then there is an app that costs £6.99 which is a bit cheeky.

Just think that maybe this is the direction I should be going in, there nothing in the Harmony range I like, and they all look to wear out in the long term.

I also have some really annoying light switch layouts in my house, such as no switch until you have blundered up the stairs in the dark. This device would let me turn the light on with an Ipad which is a bit more appealing that the messy job of new light switches.

A fully virtual remote system using non-dedicated devices? Sounds like a recipe for frustration to me!

You may be right! For once I will do my homework before I buy and look at some reviews and forums.

The problem I'd have with that is the same I have with using Remote to control iTunes/AirPlay - the Touch drops its WiFi connection a few seconds after turning the screen off which means it takes a FUCKING AGE to change tracks.

I was sure the Touch used to have a "look I hate your battery so DON'T DROP THE FUCKING WIFI" setting but I can't find it.

Has anyone tried the sky+ ipad app? It's really rather nice as a sky+ remote control.

It's bloody lovely. Great bit of work.

I no longer need one of these as I received one as a gift for being the best man at my friends wedding yesterday.

It looks like this...



It can do 39 different gestures to transmit any infra-red signal which it learns off the original remote. It works kind of like a Wiimote (only more responsive) and I love it! It's got a real solid feel too it and it's clearly a clever piece of kit.. It even talks to you! It's amazing!

I soooooo want one...

I called the supplier of these up today to find out more. Refreshingly he did know about the product which is not always the case with websites.

Overall I wasn’t convinced, the blaster needs to be line of site with your devices as would any other IR remote, so straight away that was a pain in arse. You can spend yet more money on IR extender cables @£10, but then what’s the point of a blaster costing £175.00?

So I think I will get the Logitech Harmony One+, can find this for around £80 new now as there is a new model out in December.

My other surviving Harmony has lost the function on the volume buttones now, but I mapped these to other keys, if I get a new one all this will do is control a TV and Asrock upstairs that is only used now and again.

Sadly gone are the days when I can blow £200 or more on a gadget, the wife is giving me enough shit about spending £80 asking why we can’t just use the device controls like normal people! It doesn’t help that she has never been able to turn the TV etc on without an issue using the Harmony. It sort of makes me wonder why I’m bothering

I dropped my Harmony One and annoyingly broke the screen. The remote was still ok to use day to day, but there was no way I could add any new devices or activities. As the same time my wife asked me to move the amp from the living room floor into a cupboard under the stairs.

So now I needed IR Blasters so I bought a Logitech Harmony Ultimate.

The device has a wireless hub which you plug the IR blasters into. This means stuff in cupboards and none IR devices like the WII can be controlled as well. You now add devices and activity’s via a web based application, you can then commit the changes from the remote in another room (as long as it can communicate with the hub) the web application doesn’t work on a IPad even using Chrome which is a bit crap.

By default all devices can be controlled by the hub, blasters and remote. I did have an issue with my Asrock Media PC in that it would only work when sent to remote only. In the end I sold it and bought a newer one which can be controlled by everything.

Over all the device is really good, thanks to the blasters you don’t have to be line of site to control and turn on devices or run activities which run perfectly. There is also an IPad application that allows you to control the same devices as the remote. At first I thought this would be a waste of time, but being able to tap the screen of an IPad to pause a film is really handy when the remote is under a sofa cushion!

It’s not cheap @£229.00 (at least my wife approved the spend!) but it’s the best in a long line of Harmony remotes I’ve used over the years.

Philips Hue support? iOS app? Man, that's one sexy remote.

looks like it supports those

http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Harmony-U ... -p/1031231

I would guess that once added the Hue would appear on the Ipad app as all the devices I have on my remote appear hear.

The IR extender is available for the older version I have, sounds like they've generally improved the system as a whole.

The web thing is quite annoying though, last time I looked it didn't let me specify turn-off order or timings (only on), so the eco plugs I bought don't work right; they've a 15 second timer after off which isn't enough for the 360 or PS3, so I'd need to set its ordering to last with an additional delay but it wasn't there.