Our good old Kameleon brand universal remote (discontinued now, alas) is looking like it’s in its death throes. Time to start shopping for a new one.
Who likes and can recommend a good universal remote? I’m seeing online reviews that recommend the Logitech Harmony, but it’s a bit pricey. Is this a good one? Can you recommend any others?
I have a one of the older Harmony models (650) and have been very pleased with it. It is a bit quirky in that you program it on the Logitech website and download the configuration to the remote, but that greatly reduces the likelihood that the remote will become obsolete when new televisions, etc come out. It can also work in your favor if you replace the remote for whatever reason — you just re-download.
I’ve seen that model (“recertified”, whatever that means) for $40, which strikes me as an okay price if you’re willing to take the risk.
I’ve had a couple of the Harmony remotes over the years, and they really are pretty slick. The one I have now is the Harmony hub and “simple” remote. Once I did the initial setup, there were a couple rounds of tweaking button assignments and behaviors, which was easy to do with the iPad app in the living room, rather than running back to the computer several times to adjust and re-synch like I had to do with the older models that didn’t have tablet or phone apps.
The only particularly tricky bit I’ve run into so far is with “cable” boxes. It’s not enough to try and tell the Harmony app that you have a Uverse or Xfinity box - you need to find the actual maker and model number for the box, which will probably be something surprising like Cisco ISB7000.
Yes, $120 may seem a bit much for a remote, but the functionality this thing offers is worlds beyond my first universal remote and at less than half the price.
a good universal remote is the Sony RM-VLZ620, about $25.
it controls 8 devices, is preprogrammed with hundreds of devices.
a nice feature is it is also a learning remote. you can program any button on it by playing the button of any other remote (you aim them at each other, learns by sight). so you could have your tv remote also control your air conditioner (or any other light driven remote control device).
I have had a lot of Logitech Harmonys over the years and their main advantage is that on the Harmony you set up ‘Activities’.
Each activity has a a number of devices associated with it and each devices has settings that are applied. One push of the activity button turns on all the devices, changes the channels, etc.
One push of the power button turns everything off.
Bob
My tv has a receiver which has three devices hooked up to it (cable box, apple tv, dvd player). What I like about the Harmony 650 is that it allows me to switch between the devices seamlessly. Occasionally it won’t work and it will step me through getting things back on track again. Even my wife can use it.
Another vote for the Harmony 650. I love mine.