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Logitech Harmony 1000
by agewills
Being an Audio Visual enthusiast and a massive geek, my lounge is stuffed full of all sorts of seperates that require remote controls. From my 7.1 denon amp to my Sony HDD CD player. So a grand total of 5 remote controls had to find a home on the coffee table or bookshelf and it was driving my wife nuts. Especially when she picked the ... wrong controller and was trying to turn the TV up with the DVD remote. If you had more than one piece of equipment on, its a pain to have to use multiple controllers to turn them off or simply adjust settings.
For a long while I'd wanted a remote to do it all, more so though, I wanted one with a touch screen. After all, who doesn't love touch screen?
So, I did a little research on the the internet and surfed over to www.avforums.com amoung other sites. The logitech harmony range had rave reviews and the 1000 is the pinnacle of that range. Its a true beauty. I had always liked the look of Philips Pronto, but this logitech remote just oozes class.
It has a large touch screen and easy to use buttons. Hooking it up to your laptop or PC, you can connect to the remote, uploading pictures for backgrounds or slide shows (it acts as a mini digital picture frame when sitting in its charger!) as well as change settings and customise it til your heart is content.
As you can see from the pictures, there is a "front page" of "activities" each of which can be customised to suit your needs. For mine, i tweaked it so i have "play Ps3"*, "Watch Sky with Amp" "watch Sky" "listen to CD jukebox" and "watch a dvd". Pressing any of these will send a multitude of signals through the airwaves, turning on each relevant piece of equipment and changing them to the right settings. So for example, pressing "watch a dvd" turns on the TV, sets it to HDMI2, turns on my a/v reciever, changes it to DVD and turns on the DVD player.
One button press and you are off. Much easier than grabbing three remotes to do the same thing. Even better, turning everything off is as simple as pressing the power button on the top left of the remote, which (as you might have guessed) turns everything off with one press.
Front panel is a brushed steel design but much of the rest of it is made of plastic, so it feels a little cheaper and lighter than it looked. Which i have to admit was a tiny disappointment, but that's merely asthetic. The design itself is superb.
Connecting to the internet you can access logitech's database and register nearly any device currently on the planet. Remotes that cannot be mimicked in this way, can be manually input. The remote is very much a learning remote control.
It does take a while to intially setup and I couldnt say its flawless, but i certainly wouldn't go back to 5 seperate remotes. Its easy to use and pleasant on the eye.
Here's a big selling point for most men. Its simple enough that even my wife could get to grips with it. Not to be sexist or anything, but she had far more trouble with the seperate remotes than she does with this single unit.
In the end, Logitech's harmony 1000, although pricey and perhaps a luxury, is worth every penny and is a worthy addition to any home cinema setup.
*I should mention, it DOESNT work with Sony's Playstation 3, as that console uses bluetooth for its blu ray remote, rather than infa red. But that's sony's fault!
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Logitech Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote
by djkunal
I had used a number of all-in-one remote controls in the past & wasn't really a fan. However I had heard many great things about the Logitech Harmony One from friends who have it & had also read a number of positive so I decided to try it in order to reduce the many remote I need to use for my various devices.
I bought ... mine instore from Richer Sounds for £120 but you can sometimes snap up a bargain online if you keep your eyes out & get it for as low as £80. So was it worth I hear you ask?
Absolutely, it's one of the best purchases I have ever made & so much easier to use than other all-in-ones. When you first buy it, you just connect it up to your PC & enter the model number for all the devices you want it to control. It will then go off & download the various codes it needs to control those devices from its massive database, the whole process doesn't take longer than a few minutes. You can carry out tweaks for any special controls using the easy to use software.
All the devices I throw at it, it knew about & was about to control. The only exception was my Playstation 3, however this is not the fault of this remote. The PS3 only allows control via bluetooth & not infra red which is the technology this remote works with.
I have now managed to replace around 10 different remote controls to this single one to control all my devices from TV's & Satellite Boxes to my Amplifier, CD Player & wireless music player. This really has changed my life & is highly recommended.
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