Universal Remotes

[Tulsa]

Harmony remotes are made by Logitech, certainly a name everyone is familiar with.


Harmony remotes page

I have the 670 and an older version of that same remote. The main question in my mind for choosing a universal remote is do you like hard buttons or a touch screen style. All of these remotes will control most if not all of the devices and if they can't control them all, what the heck do you have in your home?

Like most others they will not do bluetooth signals, so I can't control my PS3 with it but I can live with that one little over-sight. I went with the 670 because I prefer hard buttons. I can feel my way around the remote in a dark room without having to look at the unit. Flat surface buttons or LCD's you have to look, there is no other way to operate them. The harmony's have a very nice single handed operation which is also a plus to me. I had an older Sony remote that was like a Whopper, it definitely took two hands to handle that sucker.

The software interface is a bit clunky and cumbersome but once you get used to it, it's not that difficult. I had a Universal Remote Universal Remote Control Model MX-500 prior to the harmony and it didn't have a software interface and I felt it was much easier to program. You did have to learn each button press from all of your remotes, but it was really straight forward in it's design. Simple and effective.

In the software, first you build each of your devices. This is accomplished by selecting from a wide variety already supported by the Harmony or you can learn each remotes signals individually. This is a powerful tool. Most remotes offer secret codes like changing from input to another. In the remotes native mode it might take two button presses to accomplish this task but in their secret mode, you have only one press to change inputs. This is important as universal remotes can not easily learn the combine a "input" button and a "number" button in the same key sequence, so you most often need to learn the secret codes.

In the old days we used an old radio shack remote with a "magic button" that allowed you to try each possible code up to 256, i.e., "magic button" + 1 or "magic button" +2 and so on, just to see if your device, like your tv would accept secret codes. It was how we leaned what they were. Today most manufacturers remotes will perform this multi-function but you'll have to do some searching on the internet to find the code sequence to turn your remote's magic codes on.

The Harmony software once your devices are built and you have learned any individual commands that were not inherent in the profile of your device, now you begin to build how you want it to function with modes that incorporate functions from your various devices. I have a mode I call simply enough, "TV". When I press the button for the "TV" mode, it will power on my tv, turn it to the proper input, power on my home theatre receiver and my directtv DVR. To change to my PS3, I make another press of one button and I can switch the input on the TV, change the output of my receiver and turn off the directtv DVR. Then I grab my PS3 bluetooth remote and power on my PS3. Another button press changes the input on the "TV", powers on my 400 disc standard DVD player and I'm watching DVD's. All while I can control the volume of the receiver or the info button of whatever device I'm watching without having to grab another remote.

Currently I have my Mits TV, DVR, PS3, DVD, DVD recorder, Wii and Radio all programmed into my remote to be one or two button easy to switch to. Since my remote will work with up to 15 devices, I'm more than set. I get my hard buttons I prefer and I have two remotes on my table, the Harmony and the PS3.

We have a lady house sit when we take vacations for us and she's a bit older. Meaning she does not take that well to technology. The Harmony is easy enough once set up to allow her to easily control the TV while she there without having to call me and ask me what to do to watch freakin' Oprah or some other drivel she prefers.

There you have it, the ramblings of a loon with only one question to ask, "If you aren't using a universal remote, why?"