This has been a topic we've hashed and rehashed on this board, but it's an area of great interest to me, so I like talking about it Given this news I'd like to bring it up again.

My feeling about it is this: Logitech makes the best consumer-programmable universal remotes, but those remotes are still not great.

Now that the company is being sold, there's a great deal of uncertainty about the future of the Harmony line, and we're seeing the #1 disadvantage of investing in a niche product that depends so heavily on an online component. If there were an application for the existing remotes to use, this wouldn't be a concern. I'm still able to program my Pronto TSU1000 years after Philips ended all responsibility for that product line. But that remote was never good for the average consumer like the Harmony remotes are.

The reaction I'm seeing in a couple places is that the reason for the Harmony remotes doing so poorly is the rise of controlling your viewing experience with your phone. I completely disagree, as there's very few people actually doing that. Instead, I think the problem is just that most people just don't care about combining their remotes all that much. They live with the fact that they're going to have a few remotes on their coffee table.

Alternatively, the universal remote has become less and less necessary. From what I've seen, most people have a TV connected to two boxes. The first is usually a cable box and the second is a DVD/bluray player, media streamer (Apple TV or Roku), or game console. We've all grown up with controllers for game consoles, so we're used to those lying about. The cable box remote usually controls the TV, so I almost see that remote on people's coffee tables, and lastly they might have that media streamer with its own remote. That's three things on their coffee table, only two of which can be replace by a universal. In my experience, that's not enough to bother spending over $200.

The funny part is, just yesterday I set up a Harmony Touch remote for a client, and found it to be their best remote yet. The screen was far better quality than previous versions and you could swipe across it, and the build quality of the whole remote felt much better. I also found the online programming to be way better than used to be. The web interface was always a low point of the remote, and it was much cleaner this time.

What do you folks think? My own opinion is that we're going to see a big decline in universal remotes, but that's only going to hurt the serious home theater owners who will have to resort to much higher priced remotes that aren't really all that much better.


*edit*

ps- I forgot to mention one thing I really dislike about the Harmony Touch: they really shouldn't have moved the playback controls to the top of the device. That end of the remote is very thin, and not a suitable place for controls that any DVR user is going to be using often.

Many of the comments on the linked article seem to feel that the sale could be a positive provided the division is picked up by a go-ahead company who will improve both the hardware and the web interface. A TV/AV manufacturer would be a logical candidate.

For my part, I only have a Harmony 300 to worry about and I must say I find the hardware OK although a bit shiny and slippery, and I have not had too many problems with the web interface either.

I haven't used my Harmony in forever. The cradle design was awful, and it felt like I spent far too much time trying to get a good connection between the remote and cradle. Then, after that, all it took was a cat jumping up on that shelf and bumping it to make me dick with it all over again.

My Harmony 785 was fairly badly designed. Buttons didn't last very long and the cradle was finicky at best. The silly wizards annoyed me sometimes making some things basically impossible (5 key macros was probably the main one). Also the programming process to fix things was slow if doing them one at a time and checking as you went. As a remote though it did the job quite well once properly set up.

Since then I bought a URC (proper installer only programming one). The restriction where they won't provide the software since a home user could't possibly program one is a bit weak. Didn't take too much to sort it out thought eventually. Better build quality for sure but as a remote, not much better really.

I still like my Harmony 900. It's been working almost flawlessly (few occasional crashes and reboots, but ok...), but as I said in another thread a while ago, when I bought it, I think the idea of on-line programming is intrinsically wrong, and I still hope not to be proven right again (I already was stropped form programming my remote ones due to Logitech servers being down) now that Logitech may discontinue their Harmony remote line.

I think there's a great opportunity for some nicely designed remote App for smartphones.

Don't get me started! I was programming a Harmony for a client once, and even though I was able to get through the entire setup process, for some reason the stupid software refused to download the programming into the remote. I tried and tried and it just wouldn't work. After a long time on hold I was able to talk to someone at Harmony tech support who indicated that their website was down at the moment and I'd have to try again later. I agree, it's a stupid way to program a device like this.

For what it's worth, the magic of HDMI-CEC plus an IR Blaster gadget have allowed my bog-standard TiVo remote, with its limited programmability, to drive my whole home theater for 95% of the daily use cases. Notably, hitting the TV power button causes the receiver to power up by itself, and hitting the TV power again causes the amp to power itself down again. The only other remote on the table is the Google TV remote, which you need for watching a Blu-ray or running apps. The original receiver remote has been collecting dust in the cabinet for years.

For somebody without a fancy receiver, most cable box remotes are kinda sorta universal ("for Sony, hold down this button then type this four digit number"), at least enough that they can do the job.

A Harmony, then occupies a vanishingly small slice of an already small market: people with lots of home theater gadgetry who don't want a forest of remote controls in front of them and haven't found a way around it with conventional universal remotes and/or HDMI-CEC.

All I can say is that I hope that whoever buys Logitech's remote division makes the programming UI better. You say that the UI for programming the Touch is much improved. I'd like to see it. I'm curious.

Hm, maybe I should check to see if they've updated the UI for programming the Harmony One.

I'm still loving the Harmony One itself, and with the addition of that Xantech IR repeater that you guys suggested, things have been working quite well for me.

Harmony 900 offers a very good experience overall. I am quite happy.

This is what I'd improve to the device itself:

1. Touch screen responsiveness (increase it)
2. Touch screen sensitivity (increase it)
3. Physical switch to easily disable/enable the touchscreen (to be added)

Physical keys are excellent, instead.

Yes, software could be improved in many ways, but after the initial setup and few days of fine tuning, I found myself using it less and less. Last time I used is probably 1 year ago. So, if it only did not depend on an Internet data link, I'd be happy.

That's me! I just use the tivo remote to run the tivo and the tv and use the remote that came with all the other devices. I really like the tivo remote and mostly just use the tivo anyway.

Frankly, it's me too. I have a decent Philips Pronto that could be programmed to do all sorts of great stuff, but frankly I just don't like touchscreen remotes. As such, that remote does nothing in our system but power on/switch inputs and power off. For TV I use the Tivo remote (which I could never replace), and for Google TV I use that remote.

Started out with the early Pronto, and have been a happy non-touch screen Harmony user for quite a while. The pile of separate remotes got crazy - DVD player, PVR, amp, projector, trad TV (for when you just don't want the news on the big screen), squeezebox and lights/screen, 7 in total...

Yikes. I thought I was bad with the receiver, DVR, TV, PS3 and Wii U - 5 total. The TV remote doesn't get used, ever (can control the TV through the DVR). The console remotes only get used to watch Netflix or a DVD or play the occasional game. I can deal with two remotes for most things, and three at the max.

We've got three remotes, Tivo, roku, and DVD. But I honestly could not tell you when the DVD was last used. And if the Roku remote could turn the TV on/off and handle the sound, the Tivo remote would see a lot less use. Damn kids and their Netflix streaming! So as cool as the Harmony or Pronto are, we are not their target customer.

Slight tangent: The Roku Streaming Stick that uses MHL-HDMI, I though that it was going to be controllable from the TV's remote, that that was part of the idea of MHL, however, it just seems to use it for power. Am I missing something?

Not missing anything. HDMI-CEC is real good about power and volume control. Beyond that... not so much.

Thanks Dan

I should probably add on that HDMI-CEC's spec seems to allow for all sorts of other things, but I've only managed to get it to work for power and volume control. It does those quite well, at least, and is the reason we can drive our home theater entirely from our TiVo remote control... most of the time.

I've actually been using HDMI-CEC with our TV and a raspberry Pi and it works pretty darned well.

Running XMBC, I'm able to assign quite a few buttons on the remote to do various things which make XBMC usable on it. I had to do a couple of reassignments of buttons to get the context menu, but it's nice not to have yet another remote control to control it.

HDMI-CEC works well with XBMC, I've been using the Pulse-Eight USB HDMI-CEC gadget to get this working on my Acer Revo. It is a little expensive, but it really does mean I can control *everything* with my TV remote. sn00p, how responsive is your HDMI-CEC setup on the Pi? Mine has a bit of lag but I can't figure out if it is the Sony TV, the Pulse Eight gadget, or something software related.

There's a little bit of lag, but no less than using the LG Plex client that's built into the TV.

I installed raspbmc onto a USB stick, so the OS is running from that it's definately quicker and less laggy than running it from SD. I know that things can be further speeded up by enabling turbo mode, but I didn't have the time to fiddle and it just made the thing reboot randomly.

I wasn't convinced about using the Pi as a media centre in the early days....I'm much more convinced now, it's pretty good (if your TV supports CEC or you have some other IR setup).

I can't say specifically about whether CEC lags, I don't have another remote control or USB keyboard in which to use the GUI on it, but it's perfectly usable - not apple tv fluid, but it's prettier.

Anyone have any experience with the Acoustic Research ARRX18G? If it's all it claims to be, it looks like it would be a good alternative to the higher end Harmony remotes. However, claims and actual execution are often two different things...

This is a rebadged Xsight Touch. I have one, it's OK but it's really long feels quite large in your hand, the buttons are flush so you can't really work it blind like some remotes. Config is through their website, fiddly but I guess they have a backup in case the unit loses it's settings).

I also have a Phillips Prestigo 8215, I found this easier to programme and it's a better shape, with nice (but small) buttons, the touch screen is shit though, not bright and not exactly responsive. It did manage to lose all it's settings though, so had to reprogramme it, been OK since. By the way Philips support is absolute shit, had no idea on what went wrong, or any suggestions.

The one and only Harmony I like -- the 670 -- is discontinued, so if ours breaks, we're screwed. I should have bought a dozen of them on EBay cheap when I had a chance. The others all have fatal flaws in terms of physical design, number of buttons, etc.

The Logitech software is an abomination, but once you get the Harmony set up properly, it's hard to beat. I've always thought there was a lot more room for innovation than there has actually been, but I guess there are enough network effects that it's hard to get established as a new player.