Logitech Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote

Logitech knows who you are. You have a half-dozen remotes on the coffee table. And you're the only one in the family who knows how to use them. Logitech can help with the Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote. Enjoy a full-color touch screen. Intuitive button layout. And an ergonomic design. So easy to use, the whole family will love it.

*The Good* The remote is excellent, particularly for users that are used to finding buttons by feel in dark environments. The buttons are very well laid out and are easily operated with one hand. They are all back lit and easy to see if you need to locate a button visually. The LCD touch screen is bright and easy to use. The Recharging station is a dream come true - no more dead batteries! I also love, love, love the button placements. The folks at Logitech really did their homework on where the right place to put each button is. *The Bad* The programming software is easy to use, but has some very annoying aspects. For example, my Denon AVR-3808 receiver programmed in just fine, but has 16 pages of buttons. You can easily remove the ones you don't want, but it leaves the blank pages behind where you deleted the buttons. Specifically, I removed all of the iPod and XM Radio related buttons as I don't use them with my receiver. As a result, I'm left with about 6 empty pages in the middle of the 16 pages. (each page is comprised on 6 buttons on the LCD screen if you didn't know) You *can* move the buttons, but it's one at a time clicking up, moving the mouse, clicking up, over and over. Repeat for EACH button for a truly mind-numbing experience. It would have been better if I could remove empty pages of buttons. Another annoying issue is that the buttons aren't necessarily in the order you want them in. For example, the Denon AVR-3808 power on and power off buttons are on page 11 (out of 16 total). Sometimes my kids stand in front of the receiver and it doesn't get the ON command when I hit an activity such as "Watch TV". As such, in order to turn on the receiver I need to scroll through to page 11 to find the power on button for the receiver. *Overall* While the software is great in many regards (simple and easy to use), it can be very tedious to make adjustments to devices that have a lot of options. The remote however, is hands-down the best remote I've ever owned. The Wife Acceptance Factor is very high. My kids (age 6,7,8,9) can all use the home theater now thanks to this remote. That is perhaps the best test of all - actual use by family members that don't care to learn all the technical mumbo jumbo of the theater components. If you want to push one button to set everything in your home theater to the right settings for watching TV, watching a DVD, or playing the XBox or Wii... this is the remote for you. If you want to customize every nuance of your remote so the buttons are the right color, in the right order, and control every single device you own... this is the remote for you too.

Whatever your needs for a universal remote, this is the remote to get. Nothing else comes close. It does ALL it claims to do, AND MORE.

I've tried other universal remotes in the past,study the manual point the two remotes at each other it's a joke. This thing really works. You enter in the computer the devices you have, it ask you how you want the devices to work, and it actually works. I had one problem, and I called tech support. They were very nice and quickly talked me through the problem, which was totally my fault. I had entered the wrong device great product with great support behind it.

The software and USB cable for programming this remote make all the difference. Very smart, very easy, and *Holy Cr*p* it really works! One touch - Watch DirecTV. One touch - Watch Blu-Ray. One touch - Listen to SACD. Plus, no more batteries: a recharging docking station. Light but solid, very nice screen. I'm imprressed. It's worth the money!

After almost two weeks with the One, I have these comments: * Both appearance and apparent build quality seem first rate. But they ought to be for about $200. Just as importantly, it "feels good" in your hand, is easy to operate, and the back lit feature is very nice. * The instructions which come with the remote do an adequate job of telling you how to install the software on your computer, input information via your computer (which is patched to the remote), and describes generally the available features. What it does NOT include is an adequate explanation of how to make use of the features or reprogram certain buttons. That data is fairly well presented in the User's Guide, available on Logitech's website in PDF. However, nothing in the package, as I recall, bothers to tell you there's a user's guide on their website. I suppose they figure if you are buying a piece of technology like this, most customers are savvy enough to check the manufacturer's website for the manual. * There is a little bit of trial and error - no system which purports to control virtually every IR remote made or sold going back several years is going to be perfect right out of the chute - but that is part of the fun. There has only been one thing I had more than a little trouble with. I programmed a second TV watching "activity." That way there's one activity button for watching television with my home theater system turned on and one where nothing but the TV is on. After spending a fair amount of time finding cool looking icons for the 24 "favorite station" slots and assigning them to the correct spots, I noticed I had no icons when watching TV in the other activity mode. Turns out you have to repeat those steps when programming a second TV activity such as what I have created. They don't tell you that anywhere, though I bet plenty of folks, like me, don't bother to fire up the entire home theater just to watch the Weather Channel or CNN. It would have been nice to know that and likewise would have been nice to be able to simply check a box somewhere to repeat having to input all that identical data a second time. Like when a mail order company lets you check a box to signal that all the shipping address info is identical to your billing address info. All in all, it seems as close to perfect as a universal remote can be given it is made to work with literally hundreds of different devices. It seems fairly flexible: I have yet to find something I need it to do it can't do. Whether that sort of excellent performance is worth two bills is another question. But if you or a friend want to treat your to something you don't really "need" but works great, I doubt you will ever regret having gotten one. The best in its class, I'd say.