1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Beware: does not support all the equipment Harmony claims it does
Date of Review: Mar 6, 2007
The Bottom Line: Flawed database and klunky software make this remote more trouble than using the multiple remotes it's intended to replace.
When choosing a remote control, I did my research and I verified that all my equipment was in Harmony's online database. However, I learned after purchasing this remote that not everything in their database works out-of-the-box. Tech support even admitted to me that they don't test most equipment!
Although my television's exact model number was in Harmony's database, the remote was unable to control my tv. It was unable to change the input - all it did was send the menu command repeatedly. Plus, it only knew of a sub-set of my tv's buttons, and a couple of those buttons were swapped. My tv isn't exactly obscure either, Costco sells tons of them! My DVD player was better, although the buttons were a little jumbled, with the Play command mislabeled as the Ok command. However Harmony got my surround sound receiver perfect!
Fortunately, the remote is programmable, however programming is very tedious because Harmony's software doesn't let you directly enter in some types of information. Even if you know perfectly well how to use the remote that came with your tv to select an input, Harmony's software forces you to answer a series of questions that are dumbed-down to the point of being vague and meaningless. The software is klunky and most definitely not designed for power users.
The software also doesn't allow you to change commands that came from Harmony's database, even when the database is clearly wrong, which forced me to call tech support. Harmony's tech support people can remotely review your settings make changes for you to download to your remote. They were able to resolve all my problems remotely, but it required trial-and-error where I had to download and test each change the tech support guy made.
Once setup, the remote turned out to be fairly capable. "Activities" turn on all the equipment and attempts to turn everything to the correct input. Unfortunately, there's no general macro programming, so for example, you cannot make a button dig into a menu to activate a setting.
The remote is slow, and can lag behind your button presses. For example, if you press the volume button several times, it sends about one click per second and continues long after you stopped pressing until it has sent the number of clicks that you pressed. This causes me to often overshoot the desired level when changing my surround sound system's volume.
By default, commands that do not have a dedicated button can be accessed through the screen. However, with only 4 shown at a time, it's very annoying to use the screen for commonly accessed buttons. That made programming my PVR annoying, so I mapped commands onto face buttons. However, with only two general buttons A and B, I had to re-purpose other buttons. I mapped "C" onto Enter, "Live TV" onto Skip, and the Clear button control the aspect ratio! Confusing, but better than scrolling through the screen.
Overall, I can't recommend this remote, nor any other Logitech-Harmony remote because they all share the same flawed database and klunky software.
