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Technology Lifestyle CES 2008: Logitech Harmony One universal remote control - REVIEW
Technology Lifestyle CES 2008: Logitech Harmony One universal remote control - REVIEW | CES 2008: Logitech Harmony One universal remote control - REVIEW |
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| by Adam Turner | |
| Sunday, 06 January 2008 | |
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Page 2 of 3 The Harmony remotes rely on macros called "Activities". Whereas the Harmony 785's screen displays six Activities buttons at a time, the Harmony One only displays three - forcing you to scroll through twice as many pages of Activities until you find what you're looking for. Sure it's only an extra two or three button presses, but it does become annoying if you're familiar with the Harmony 785 (or the Harmony 880 which appears to display eight at a time).Featured Whitepaper
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As with all Harmony remotes, when you want to stray beyond your pre-programmed Activities you can press the Devices button and call up the remote control for your device of choice. At first glance it appears the Devices button is missing from the Harmony One, but it's just become a soft button built into the touch screen display. Again you can only display three Device buttons on the Harmony One's screen, while the Harmony 785 displays six. Annoyingly you can't change the order of the Devices, so the device you want (such as a Media Centre) could be buried on page five. The ability to change the order of Devices seems like such a simple and obvious feature that we can't understand why Logitech didn't add it years ago. The Harmony remotes keep track of the status of your devices, so they don't try to switch on your television when it's already on, but this is both a strength and a weakness. They only keep track of the Activities you've run, so for example if you switch on the television any other way (such as using the Devices option) the remote thinks the televisionis still off. This means the next time you run an Activity that requires the television on, it actually turns the television off . The problem is that Logitech assumes you'll create Activities to meet all your needs and never need to use the Devices option. This might be so if you've just got a television, DVD player and amplifier, but once you're dealing with more than this you'd need to create dozens of Activities to allow for every possible scenario. If the remote would only keep track of your button presses in Devices mode then the problem would be solved - it's the Harmony range's biggest flaw and again we can't understand why Logitech didn't address it years ago. There is a way around this using "discrete codes", available for many devices, which send specific ON or OFF commands to devices rather than just toggling between on and off. The problem is the Harmony remotes don't always use discrete codes by default and don't draw them to your attention. Non-tech savvy users, who are obviously a key market for the Harmony range, have no hope of figuring this out for themselves and then manually customise each Activities macro. Thankfully the remote has a built in assistant. You can press Help when everything isn't as it should be and the remote tries various options (like turning the TV on) until you tell it the problem is solved. The discrete codes issue touches on the other major problem with the Harmony range - they're just too bloody complicated for a newbie to configure. Sure users can follow the setup wizards, but most people will need to delve into the advanced settings and manually customise each Activity and Device before they're completely happy with their shiny new remote. Logitech has tried to makethings as idiot proof as possible but it just can't escape the fact home entertainment setups are complicated ecosystems. Logitech obviously realises this, as it includes the option of a desktop helpline chat application with the software and has even stuck the helpline phone number on the USB cable. Regardless, you certainly wouldn't hand the Harmony One box to a tech illiterate relative and walk away - it takes some AV know-how to fine tune a remote like this. While the Harmony One still retains the flaws of its predecessors, sadly there's very little in the way of new features to entice people to upgrade.CONTINUED |
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