Logitech to sell off the Harmony brand

Poor results has meant that Logitech is moving away from remotes, as well as speaker docks and console gaming peripherals.

Once the darling of the home theatre set, Harmony’s range of universal remotes has proven less than profitable for Logitech, with the latest quarterly earnings causing the company to announce its intention to sell the remotes division.

Logitech posted an operating loss of US$180 million for the third quarter of fiscal year 2013, 14 per cent down on the same period last year.

The company is blaming the poor PC market, and in a media statement, announced its intention to focus on the tablet and smartphone market. This means ridding itself of universal remotes, but it also seems that non-mobile gaming peripherals and speaker docks will be caught in the purge. Logitech CEO Bracken P Darrel said:

We have initiated the process to divest our remote controls and digital video security categories, and we plan to discontinue other non-strategic products, such as speaker docks and console gaming, by the end of calendar year 2013.

Harmony remotes have been considered some of the best universal remotes available and, in recent months, Logitech has brought Australian pricing of the hardware down, matching US prices in a fairly unprecedented move.

While it’s true that tablets can now fulfil many of the functions offered by a universal remote, we’d recommend readers to keep an eye on any sales — the Harmony Touch is a great product, and if there’s a chance to snap a bargain on one, we’d suggest you take it.