Our Harmony H659 seems to have shuffled off this electronic coil. It was fantastic. Once set up (via PC. It was a bit cumbersome but relatively straightforward), we just pushed an activity button and it switched the components to the correct settings and changed how its buttons acted (per our set-up instructions).
What more could we want? The closest I’m finding to it is the ‘updated’ version, running around $90. Ooohhh, color screen! It’s limited to five components. The next step up is the 700. It controls 6 machines, and comes in around $150. Then there’s the Harmony One—$190. The two differences I can see (so far) is that it controls up to 15 components and has a touch screen.
That’s quite a spread cost-wise. Other than eleven more devices than we have and a touch-screen, what does the One do that the others don’t (besides taking down the Matrix)?
No idea. I have the Harmony 360, and it works great. It seldom gets mentioned since it was geared towards the Xbox 360 crowd, but you can find them on ebay for far cheaper than any of the other top Harmony remotes, and it controls 11 devices (12 if you have a 360). I love it. Doesn’t have a touchscreen or rechargeable batteries, but it really doesn’t use a ton of juice.
But if you’re looking for top of the line, the One is good. The 900 is it’s successor.
I love taking my top-of-the-line devices on my roof, waving them over my head, and cowing my neighbors into envious submission.
But if I’m going to do that, I’ll need something to shout about.
The den only has four pieces–the TV, receiver, Blu-Ray, and cable box. There’s also an entertainment PC in there, but it runs off of a Leveno hand-held keyboard/trackball, something that an IR remote can’t help with. Similar to the Wii in there–no use for a remote. I can’t think of anything else that’s even in the pike that could be added to the system. All music is in the parlour, so there is no CD or MP3 player involved.
We have a plethora of rechargeables already, so the built-in cradle charger isn’t that big a deal.
My big fear with the touch-screen is picking it up to change the volume and accidentally changing the activity. That would get the expensive remote thrown through the expensive television.
I’ll be happy to save the hundred bucks, but I’d like to be sure the emperor really is wearing no clothes (except for folks with lots of pieces to control).
The 900 has an RF blaster, so you could add the device in the other room with no problem. As for changing activities accidentally, that’s pretty tough to do - when you’re in the middle of an activity, the touchscreen isn’t on “change activities” mode, it’s on “specialty buttons you like to use”. To change activities, you press the “Activities” (hard) button, and then the touchscreen.
It was very easy to train the remote to anything I wanted it to do. (But I do have a weird TV set that I have to fight for which input it should be on, so I created an “input” specialty button where the touchscreen would be on a One - that solved that.) The one thing I don’t have that makes it much easier is a wife to train how to use it all - I had a roommate that cursed it every single time, and just dug out the original (4) remotes when he wanted.