New Harmony One Universal Remote

[cashew1970]

Hi All.....

I am thinking of getting hold of one of the new Harmoney One Universal Remote control units..

Has anyone had a play with one to see how good it is at controlling the TiVo?

I was going to go for the 885 model.... but the "One" seems to have more features...and is cheaper..

Link is here http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/remotes/universal_remotes/devices/3898&cl=gb,en

And Ebyuer has them for £109

Cheers ...

Martin

[nbaker]

Hi All.....

I am thinking of getting hold of one of the new Harmoney One Universal Remote control units..

Has anyone had a play with one to see how good it is at controlling the TiVo?

I was going to go for the 885 model.... but the "One" seems to have more features...and is cheaper..

Link is here http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/remotes/universal_remotes/devices/3898&cl=gb,en

And Ebyuer has them for £109

Cheers ...

Martin

Just got one myself today but won't get chance to try it out till Friday night, so i'll report back then:up:

It looks lovely though :cool:

[cashew1970]

Great, thanks..... I look forward to your report!!! :-)
I went ahead and ordered anyway! but will not get mine for another couple of days!
I did find one review out there somewhere that said that the UK Tivo codes are available... so I thought... what the heck!

[gazter]

Hi All.....

I am thinking of getting hold of one of the new Harmoney One Universal Remote control units..

Has anyone had a play with one to see how good it is at controlling the TiVo?

I was going to go for the 885 model.... but the "One" seems to have more features...and is cheaper..

Link is here http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/remotes/universal_remotes/devices/3898&cl=gb,en

And Ebyuer has them for £109

Cheers ...

Martin

I have the harmony 1000, still boxed, used once, not my cup of tea..

[WebAgents]

I have the Harmon 855, had it for years. The 'remotes' don't have the codes as such. The Harmony website does.

You logon at Harmony.com or whatever it's called as they are now part of Logitech. Tell the website what devices you have, and how you use them (EG. "When watching TV I use my amp for sound set to input 1 and my TV set to input 2 and my sky box on and my tivo on but my dvd player off")
You then connect remote to pc and the website zaps the config to it. You can of course customise it.

The Tivo button mapping is great and you can of course customise it heavily.

BUT

TBH I ONLY use the harmony for choosing which activity (watch dvd, watch tv, listen to cd etc.) And use the original remote for controlling the device. So I press watch Tivo on the harmony then use the tivo remote. Press watch dvd on harmony and use dvd remote. I'm so used to the layout on the individual remotes and the tivo one is excellent and can't be bettered really.

So whilst I still have 6 remotes or so I am only ever using one and as long as they are returned to their 'home' (on top of the Subwoofer) the wife does not mind :)

[chimaera]

Doesn't the One have less features than the 885? I thought it didn't have the text buttons and could only show four activities at the top instead of eight? The 885 isn't much more expensive, it's £114 at pixmania.co.uk although it used to be quite a lot more than that. I'll stick with my trusty 885, one of the best gadgets I ever bought :)

[cashew1970]

Still no sign of mine from Ebuyer........ I want to play!
I have looked at the 885, nut the touch screen outweighs the 8 activities per screen for me....

[chimaera]

I don't like small touch screens much, which is why I am sceptical about the iPhone. I'm sure you will find it invaluable once you have taken the time to set it up - mine replaces 8 remotes and it's the only thing I use, the originals are all packed away. I had a few other universal remotes before and none of them came close.

[timjon]

This looks pretty interesting, but I'm slightly turned off by all the "user friendly" stuff. Thing is, I don't want to hit a single button and let the remote do everything, I'd rather do it myself. I spend my life dealing with technology, and I absolutely hate stuff that's "dumbed down".

I guess my question is... how suitable is this thing for power users? Can you reconfigure everything, or are you forced to use idiot proof wizards and stick to their recommended setups?

Cheers,

Tim.

[chimaera]

I'm not really sure what you mean by doing it yourself. Activities exist just as a container for the devices involved. You can create a large number of activities for different things e.g. Watch DVD, Watch TiVo, Listen to Music etc and you can call them what you like. Having told it which devices are used for a particular activity using the wizard, it knows how to power them on and off and automatically defines basic functionality for the hard buttons. For example it might set the volume buttons to adjust the volume on the av amp, the transport control buttons to control the DVD player, and other buttons to do things on the TV like bring up the picture menu. For many people this would be sufficient without additional complexity. However, for each activity you can if you wish reconfigure any of the hard buttons to do anything, and you can add custom actions and macros which are activated from the top screen.

One thing you can't do is enter a raw IR code in text form. The device needs to be in their master database, or you need to add it by learning from an existing remote, or customer services will add it if you send them the spec. However the master database is huge. For example it even includes full operation of my Cyrus DACX which is a low volume device (and doesn't come with a remote either).

I've been using mine for getting on for two years now and I find it is excellent. After an initial period tweaking the setup you get to a point where you just don't need any other remotes. Whenever you get a new device you don't have to learn a new remote layout, just add the device, create or edit any activities for it and it al works nicely. The transport controls are quite TiVo like and it has a rechargeable battery which lasts about a week for me before leaving it on the cradle overnight. And it's backlit so you can see what you are doing in low light. I much prefer it to the TC1000 and then Pronto I had before. It manages to bridge the gap between being flexible enough to do most things and being effective and intuitive for anyone to use on a daily basis.