>> The Logitech Harmony series of remotes consistently
gets good ratings from CNET editors and users. But how
does it wear over time? Well, I've been living with one
for six months, so I'm going to tell you. I'm Tom Merit
from cnet.com. We're going to shine the Product
Spotlight on the Logitech Harmony remote.
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>> I got the Harmony 880 back in December. It was a
gift. It's a universal remote that promises to be the
easiest in the world to setup and use. And it comes
pretty close to the mark. The setup is probably the
hardest part. It's not even that hard. You start with
some software you install on your computer. First
annoyance, the software installs itself into your
start-up. Please, companies, I don't need to reprogram
my remote every day. So I don't need the setup software
to auto-start. Okay, back to the program. It's a
modified Internet Explorer box that connects to
Harmony's database on line and walks you through the
steps of programming your device. Now the idea is that
you put in your device name and the software finds the
proper codes with which to program your remote. That's
great for most devices, but it gets a little funky if
you don't know a device's proper name, or its too new to
be in the database. The Apple TV wasn't in the database
when I first got it, and hence it's not controlled by my
Harmony. Now there is an option to train the Harmony
remote the way you would a regular universal remote, but
it just didn't work for me. As you setup devices you
can group them into activities. So for instance, the
Watch a DVD Activity will turn on the TV, the DVD
player, the speakers, et cetera. The activities work
great, but they take a little tweaking. I customized my
Xbox 360 so the activity didn't turn it on and off. I
can turn the Xbox on and off with the Xbox controller
which I need to play games with anyway, and it's handy
to have it stay on when everything else goes off, so
incase I'm downloading something from the Xbox
Marketplace, it stays downloaded. Now, another
annoyance, the setup program is meant for setting up.
Which means changing things later after you've setup can
be a little bit of a hassle. For instance, when I
changed my speakers it took me a while to go through and
adjust every activity to play with the speakers
correctly. Once you're through with setup, the remote
works really well. It's nice to be able to press just
one button and have everything jump into action. A
slight annoyance, you do have to keep the remote pointed
towards all your devices while it turns them all on.
Sometimes if I'm not oriented correctly my speakers
don't come on. The remote does have handy help screens
to walk you through figuring out if something didn't get
activated properly. That almost always fixes the
problem. Now those activities that we mentioned setting
up earlier, assign different buttons to different
functions. So for instance, if you're watching TV, the
channel buttons will change the channel on the tuner,
whereas the volume buttons will change the volume on the
speakers. Well, that's great most of the time. But
what if you want all of the buttons to control just one
device. Don't reach for those old remotes yet, just
press the device button. It will bring up a list of
devices, you can then control the individual device from
there. You know, overall the Harmony 880 has certainly
cleared up a lot of space on my coffee table and made
things a lot easier to use. The few annoyances are
largely outweighed by the benefits. I'm Tom Merit from
cnet.com, and I approve this remote.
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