Universal Remotes - worth it?

I got the Harmony Smart in one of the Black Friday sales last week, only got around to setting up over the w/e. Well impressed. Although designed to use a phone/tablet as the driving device the remote that came with it is more than useable. Need to spend some more time tweaking the config for my own preferences but for me it was well worth it.
 
Just to say, I picked up the Harmony Ultimate in Amazon sales and set it up this weekend.

I am truly impressed with it - easy to set up and configure - if you have any issues then you can phone them up and ask them to make changes to your config (I needed another 5 seconds delay after power-on for my AVR before it switched inputs).

I've thrown all my other remotes into a drawer and my partner can finally watch TV, listen to music, watch bluray or network movie without my assistance as it's now simply a "1-button" operation.

Worth every penny spent :)
 
it's ok, but harmony still fails the wife test when doing anything that requires pointing it at the devices for more than a second.. Luckily for me CEC controls everything I use wit the TV remote, so oddly enough my harmony is in the draw instead ;)
 
FerretBoy said:
it's ok, but harmony still fails the wife test when doing anything that requires pointing it at the devices for more than a second..
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That's the beauty of the Smart and Ultimate - the controller is RF to a base station thing that does the IR. I have all my kit in the dinning room except for the telly. I've routed the extra IR emitter to the front room. It does the TV fine and the rest all handled by the Harmony's base unit.

I've tried various RF repeaters/senders in the past but this just works. Can you tell I like it ;)
 
If the Sky+ box supported CEC I would just use that.

I don't fancy using a phone as a controller. Although the simple remote with the Smart looks quite good. The Ultimate is £lol expensive usually, so at normal pricing its a toss up between the Smart and the Touch. So it's good to get some reviews from people.

If the remote doesn't need line of sight to the devices with the Smart, does the base unit? I.e. putting it on top of the Sky box would cause a problem?
 
I've put my Smart control unit on the other side of the room where it can see the rack of AV stuff. It comes with one IR extender and there is a socket for a 2nd. If it's not powerful enough itself to reflect the IR around so the Sky box can see it then you can use these. I've not tried it but the old IR extender I was using had 4 IR LEDs on a single wire and I used BluTak to mount these in front of each bit of kit. I'd expect that idea to work with the Smart too.

So far I've only used the tablet to configure the system and used the supplied remote. I'll not use my phone as that's password locked and that would be a pain each time but I'll play more with the tablet as some of the gestures look interesting and using channel icons to change channel looks good. Although if you forget channel numbers I reckon your lost!
 
Just set up my Harmony Smart, pretty nifty. Took me an hour but the app runs you through everything. The "basic" remote is still very customisable, but because there is no screen you kinda have to remember what each icon does. As you can assign 8 devices and there are only 6 buttons at the top, not sure how it works with the last 2 devices as you Press or Hold to activate an activity.

It's pretty weird however, press 1 button, it boots up everything that needs booting up, select the receiver to the right port and things just work, and the remote (up/down/left/right/play/pause) would work for that device, be it my 12 years old CD player, or Apple TV.

There is always an option of buying the remote separately later on should I need it :)
 
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picnic said:
That's the beauty of the Smart and Ultimate - the controller is RF to a base station thing that does the IR. I have all my kit in the dinning room except for the telly. I've routed the extra IR emitter to the front room. It does the TV fine and the rest all handled by the Harmony's base unit.

I've tried various RF repeaters/senders in the past but this just works. Can you tell I like it ;)
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Exactly why I didn't want to rely on CEC. The new Harmony's use RF to base station meaning you can site IR sensors everywhere you need to and shut stuff away in av cabinets etc.

The Ultimate controller adds a big chunk of money but definitely worth the extra for the touchscreen as it removes the "what does this button do" issue of the cheaper remote.

I looked at CEC but for SWMBO compatibility the Harmony Ultimate is where it's at.
 
So does the Touch remote also do RF? Or is the one you get with the Ultimate different to the stand alone Touch?
 
I have a question for you chaps!

Will the Hamony allow me to access the speaker settings on the amplifier (distances, sizes etc)? Logitech said that the Menu buton is registered in their database for my device (Sony STR-DG820) but said "hopefully" that will work. I dont wanna spend a load on a remote for it not to work.
 
Skeeter said:
So does the Touch remote also do RF? Or is the one you get with the Ultimate different to the stand alone Touch?
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No, it doesn't support RF. The remotes are physically identical with a small difference in firmware. It's the box add on thing you get with the Ultimate that does the RF. You can buy it separately.

DampCat said:
I have a question for you chaps!

Will the Hamony allow me to access the speaker settings on the amplifier (distances, sizes etc)? Logitech said that the Menu buton is registered in their database for my device (Sony STR-DG820) but said "hopefully" that will work. I dont wanna spend a load on a remote for it not to work.
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Even if it doesn't work with the default presets, you can totally program it and it can learn commands from an existing remote. So basically it will always work no matter what :p
 
I dont have the old remote, it was lost in a house move. Do i need it physically or can i just look up codes?
 
Holly necro thread batman!

DampCat - the Harmony range of remotes either work by searching for the model number in their database or learning from existing remotes.

I've never had a problem with any Sony device and a quick way to check if your devices will work is to check the compatibility checker here:
http://support.myharmony.com/en/compatibility

Your AMP seems to be supported so I don't think you'll have any trouble adding the device with the model number.

If you're looking to just replace just this one remote and not invest in a complete solution then the Harmony 300 is a cheaper and simple option (£25)

However, if you really want to make the most of what the Harmony range offer then I highly recommend you look at the Harmony Smart Control (£68) as it's a great bit of kit. So good I started a thread about it: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18631835
 
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Yeah i checked the compatibilty of it, I know it'll work.. i'm just still not clear it it will allow me to access the advanced settings for speaker distances and sizes.
 
DampCat said:
Yeah i checked the compatibilty of it, I know it'll work.. i'm just still not clear it it will allow me to access the advanced settings for speaker distances and sizes.
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Well the "advanced" settings are usually just hidden behind options accessed via the menu button. So as long as it allows you to press "menu, up, down, left, right and ok" then you'll be fine.

Hell, sometimes you even find the Harmony controllers offer MORE functionality than standard remote because they'll have additional codes for directly selecting HDMI inputs rather than having to use a menu.

I've never had a device that could be added that didn't make available every button on the original controller.
 
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