Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Harmony remote for christmas ?s

Hey guys I received a Harmony 550 remote from the GF for christmas and I was wondering if anyone had any experiance with that model.
If there is a much better one for the same price or even up to $75.00 more I would be interested in ya'lls opinions.

Bray, I not only got the 550, but the 659 as well.

I've had a chubby for the 659 for quite some time now, so I opened it first. (Yes, I'm White & Nerdy!!) But frankly, I'm disappointed. The buttons are too small, not laid out "logically", and hard to tell apart by "feel". Also, compared to my A/V Receiver and PVR remotes, I have to go into many sub menus to do simple functions. I don't think I'm keeping either one.

My wife is still very excited at the prospect of only having to push ONE button to watch TV. And that is where it shines. Past that, I'm whipping out the old remotes.

I may have to check into Ray's recommendation of the "Home Theater Master". I think that's the one he's always talking about.......

I've been using the 659 for over a year now and love it. The ability to be able to push just one button for an activity is the greatest thing about it imo. I don't find in necessary very often, if ever, to have to break out any of the original remotes.

Where I work we spec mostly Universal remote brand remotes. Namely the MX900 and matching base station, However We did get a couple Harmony 880's left over from a job and I think they are much easier to use, And alot easier to program. The harmony user interface seems well thought out and the buttons you need to press to do complicated macros seem common sense.

The 659 is promoted as "The Family Remote" is it not? I own the 628(Costco Spec of 659) and I find incredibly easy to use as does my wife, 6yr old and 3 yr old. I have it for the main family room and it has enabled my family to watch or listen to what ever they want with out needing to grab 3 other remotes(or have me in the room). The buttons at the top being color coded are what help my 3 yr old operate it, when he wants to watch a movie he knows to push the blue button and everything turns on for him, the electronic babysitter never worked so well!

Yes there are some short falls but it seems if you need to do more with PVR's and such that maybe the higher end Harmony remotes might be better. My friend has the 688? and he uses it with a digital cable box and PVR and loves it.

I've been using my new Harmony 890 and i really like it. It is not the perfect unit as i would agree, the buttons are kind of slim and not intuitive by touch. The stop/play/pause buttons are not in the standard order like most remotes and they do not have unique shapes to help your fingers locate them without pressing the glow button or memorizing their locations (this will come with time).
Many of the buttons from the other remotes are stored in the 890 but i have to scroll through 11 pages to find specific buttons for the Onkyo receiver. I will need to do some rearranging to get the more used buttons onto the first screen but other than that, the simplicity of having a fast learning, one button push unit has been great. MY wife loves it for that and so will the visiting relatives.
I still have batteries in my other remotes in case i need to jump back for something that is rarely done but easier with them (e.g. setting up convergence fixes on the tv).
Now i'm looking into getting another but smaller remote for our main floor tv (dvdp, preamp/receiver and satellite plus tv to get into one).

Thanks for the replys guys.
So...... Are you guys saying I should crack this package open and get started with it or trade it in for a different model?
I do like the fact that I can program this thing with a Mac and not have to go across town to my friends house (he has a PC).

I've got the 670 coming, so we'll see how that goes.

I've got the 880 and I love it. The recarging station is the biggest upgrade-although I think I had the 860 before (not color, not rechargable, but otherwise the same thing).

One thing is for sure-those are the best remotes on the planet to program for the significant other. And if I'm wrong about that I want to know what I'm missing.

Do you find the web based programming to be limited in how you can configure the remote? I'm looking at buying another MX (probably the 950) but these Harmony's have always interested me. I just don't want to buy one and then be ham-stringed with programming. With the MX line remotes, there is close to an infinite amount of configurations that one can do. You can also set up one button controls for 'activity based' switching. But they are sorta big and cumbersome to hold onto. The Harmony's look smaller, more comfortable.

The WAF played into my choice, gotta admit.

If I remember right you can go to Logitechs website and preprogram your remote as a guest, before you buy it! You will need the model numbers of all the items you want to have it set up and then you are off. I know I was able to do it a few years back before I bought mine.

I much prefer the Universal remotes for reasons I have pounded on several times here.;)

Having said that(again), you may want to google the 550. I did some research for a friend and the comments on the reliability/performance of the 550 seemed to come up a bit short. If you really want a Harmony, it might be worth a few $$ to upgrade.

I have just received a Harmony 688 remote, and must say that it's a revelation. All the other remotes have been retired.

I have two gripes: the first is that when I press "Watch DVD", I want the custom DVD-centric LCD buttons to be the first screen, and they're not. For some reason the TV-centric buttons are always first (at least according to Logitech's tech support e-mail response).

The second gripe is that the 688 has a button labeled "sound", which I want to program to change the Audio function of the DVD player. Alas, the "sound" option is not available in the Harmony configuration software, even though the picture of the 688 clearly shows the button and it is physically present on the remote. I have worked around this nit by having the button labeled "guide" change the Audio function. Cludgy, and should be able to be fixed.

Otherwise, the 688 has received rave reviews from my wife, mother-in-law, and even my 5-yr old son. He especially like the "big new remote"

And, finally, since the price of the 688 is now under $100, it's hard not to recommend at that price point.

Well I went ahead and cracked the package open and programmed it.
Because of some of the wording and general software appearance/layout this thing was a MAJOR PITA to get going.
The 1st time I called supoort I was on hold for 25 minutes but once I actually got to talk to someone she was very helpful and had me understandining the software a little better. After fiddleing with the remote for a few minutes I decided I wanted to change some things. Easier said than done. The second time I called support I was on hold for 35 minutes . When I finally talked to the next person he WASNT nearly as helpful.
I asked him if there was a way I could just start over and erase everything I had already programmed? He said, "There should be but I dont know, I'm just trained to ask certain questions."
About the time he said that i noticed a tiny trashcan icon next to some of my programmed activities. I asked if that would do the trick? Again he didnt know. At this point I just clicked icon and "poof" that activity was erased.
I told the guy thanks for letting me teach him something and hung up.
Now that I've got it basically programmed, I think I'm going to like it.
Time will tell.

If I find anything more positive or negative about I'll let ya'll know.

I've got the 880 and have found the Logitech remotes fairly simple to program, after initial programing I'll go back and tweak a few settings, I've got mine set so it will control every operation I use ,SatTV, DVD, HD DVD, Xbox360, SACD, CD direct, Tivo, all with one push of a button.
Doesn't get much easier than that.

I must have been REALLY good this year, because I just got a late gift tonight...the Logitech 880 remote.

I almost hate to ask, but there is more customization available than just what you see in the test drive, right? I'd like to be able to assign stuff to buttons, at the very least.

On the three that I own 659,688,880, you can customize them to learn any commands that exist on your devices remotes, I went back in after intial setup and assigned other commands that I wanted into my Harmony's.

Oh good. The test drive just has you set up activities, which seem fairly limited. I don't necessarily just want to turn stuff on...

Quote:

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I almost hate to ask, but there is more customization available than just what you see in the test drive, right? I'd like to be able to assign stuff to buttons, at the very least.

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Yes, almost any button can be assigned to do something, of course alot of that depends on the model you are looking at.

670--essentially a repackage of the 680. It'll be showing up soon enough, I suppose...

How simple is it to edit the devise after you set it up? Can you also set up independent macros, so say the lights on a X10 light controller?

One real important aspect for me is the remote RF/IR flashers. Can you adjust the flasher output level or pulse time?

One of my favorite "little" functions I set the 550 up to do is turn on ext.in for sacd and turn it off for DVD on my Denon AVR for my Philips DVD/SACD player.
I'm sure there are many many things I'll end up teaching it to do.
The only remote I havent been able to setup is the remote for my iMac (to control iTunes).
After reading reviews until 12:00 A.M., I had decided to trade the 550 in on a Home Theater Master MX 700 until I found out you couldnt program it using a Mac. I'll be keeping the Harmony 550.

It's pretty simple to change things after the initial setup, just get back into the computer and tell the remote what you want to learn.
I believe you can setup independent macros such as a light controller, but I haven't tried.
You also can setup delay times for the IR flasher to control how the equipment comes on, such as a Plasma TV that will take longer to actually switch on as compared to a receiver.
The 890 and 1000 remote series are the new models that use both IR and RF and I'm not that familiar with them.

I was sad to notice AFTER I purchased my PS3 that my Harmony 880 did not control it. PS3 is BlueTooth. I have been more than happy with my 880 and blame Sony for the PS3 issue. However, some people argue that BlueTooth is superior and the choice of the future for all remotes. I see their point, but for the moment I wish I could control PS3 with my 880, just like I do with everything else.

Well, got my 670. So far, not so bad. The only I have is that it says that I need to call customer support for special programming for my receiver. This was after I tried to confirm IR codes for it. Probably a mistake. Needless to say, it probably won't be replacing my hated H/K 525 remote--especially since whoever entered the screen settings for it was clearly not up on the concept of abbreviations.

Also, I had no idea that my 27" CRT had aspect ratios available, or about 12 inputs. Imagine my surprise to find computer inputs available, when all I thought it had was S-video!