What's Awesome in Universal Remotes? (1 Viewer)

[John Dirk]

John, I believe if you look into it, the Harmony Elite is as close to what you are dreaming as is currently available.

Your're spot on, John. Every time I visit Costco I take a look at the Harmony remotes and try to force one into my cart. . My problem is I simply have a hard time justifying fixing something that technically isn't broken. I control my amps with triggers and use IR only for granular control of my projector, which is rarely even needed after initial setup. The Oppo and marantz already support IP control and I'm sure my next projector will as well. Everything else is controlled within the HTPC environment. Switching between IP control apps would definitely become tedious if I had more than a few. I like the tab S because it not only functions as my universal remote but it allows me to browse the web while watching a movie on the big screen and even access and control my security cameras.

 

[John Dirk]

The biggest thing when getting a new remote or control system is to look at the final result that you desire. Do you just want to control a TV and it's components in one room? Would you like light control? Or would you like to control multiple rooms or zones.

Harmony remotes are one of the best "one room" control solutions. Once you add in more control for a second zone, it becomes difficult and a Harmony would not be recommended.

Trying to do everything with their respective apps is a way to do basic control, if you only have a few things. I run over 30 different control devices, there is no way I am going to switch between all these apps every time I want to change something.

Crestron, URC and Control4 are whole home solutions to bring everything under one umbrella for total control. When it's time for bed, I can just say "Alexa, Goodnight" and my Echo will send the goodnight message to Control4. Control 4 will then turn off all TV's and electronics in the house, set a five minute timer on living room lights if they're on, turn off fireplace and fan in living room if they are on and turn on the bedroom light if it is between 8 and midnight.

When I walk through the house and tell Alexa to turn on music in each room, she will send info to Control4 and C4 will check what music is playing in living room and match it. If the living room is not playing anything then C4 will play a preprogrammed station that I set up.

The reason for ip control on systems like Control4 are two fold. One is, as stated above, no wires to run. Second is that I can have two way communication between C4 and the device. If I say turn on security cameras and the TV doesn't switch to the proper input, Control4 will see this and resend the input change command.

Harmony does do ip control but as far as I know does not support two way communication. Harmony only knows what the last command sent is and assumes everything is in that state.

All these control options are good as long as you get the one that is going to get you the final result desired.

Great information. Thanks! I should have prefaced my earlier comment by stating I have no direct experience with Creston or Control4 but I do have a lot of experience with IP Control and "smart devices." To achieve all and more functionality than you described above you simply need a robust enough transport mechanism [LAN] and compatible devices that are smart enough to work together.

The IoT is still in its relative infancy in my opinion. I personally use a lot of ZWave devices in my home. They're probably not quite as elegant [and definitely not as reliable] as what you have but are theoretically capable of similar functionality, with proper programming of course.

 

[JohnRice]

Your're spot on, John.

Well, except for the whole house systems like Brian mentioned.

I've just seen too much dystopian Sci-Fi to even consider those kinds of systems. I don't even like smart phones. I can turn the lights on and off myself, but with the Elite coming, I might do that only in the HT. I'm more than content being able to turn music on/of anywhere in the house just using iTunes and an iPad. That's plenty convenient and sophisticated for me. I really don't need the comments I mumble to myself recorded and sent out in email blasts.

 

[George_W_K]

I have the Elite and love it. I don't use it for anything complicated, just one room with different components. It's very nice to not have to point the remote. And in the software, there's a way to program leaving devices on when switching between activities.

There's a thread Ron started here about the Elite. I'd post the link if I wasn't working right now.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

One big improvement for me is that the 950 lets you add codes from one component to another. I have a complicated system, with two preamps. One for surround and one for two channel music, that just passes the front channels through when I using surround. Long story short, I need to add a lot of codes for my DAC and analog preamp to components that play music. On the Harmony One, I has probably a couple hundred codes I had to add from other remotes. It's hard to explain. Anyway, the 950 (and probably other current models) lets me just copy codes from one component to another. It's a huge time savings getting it programmed.

I have been able to do that via activities with every Harmony remote I've owned (I think I'm on my third different model over the past decade or so). I use activities pretty much exclusively to operate my setup, having one for each source component with my current Harmony 650 -- Watch TV (Xfinity cable box), Watch UHD (Sony X800), Watch BD (Panny BD player), Watch DVD (Oppo DVD player), Watch Apple TV, Watch Roku, Watch Smartcast (Vizio display built-in apps). I have each activity setup with the same "look and feel", so that the same button from one activity does the same thing in each activity (where applicable). For example, the top left "soft button" is configured to open/close the disc tray door on all three disc players, while that same button is the Home button for the two streaming boxes. The left two "soft buttons" on the first screen are the INFO buttons for my Vizio display and Denon AVR, so I can verify the audio format on the AVR and HDR/SDR is coming through properly on the display. My 2nd screen of soft buttons for each activity is to change the various sound formats for my Denon AVR. And so on.

 

[JohnRice]

Scott, I realized I has misspoken later. When I got the Harmony One so many years ago, Activities did nothing but annoy me. Components didn't have Power On/Off codes instead of toggle, and stuff was always getting all screwed up. So I completely ignored that feature and custom programmed each individual component to do what I wanted, adding codes from other components, like volume, to get it all working. It took forever and it doesn't let you carry over commands from one component to another. That's what I was thinking when I typed that. It's still that way. Now Activities seem to work much better.

 

[xx Brian xx]

John, great info on Touchsquid. I spent some time tonight reading about it and watching videos about it, very cool remote option! I would highly recommend someone thinking about getting more advanced control looking into it. You can create macros to run as activities or write a macro for shut the house down at night, wake me up, set up room for movie night, etc.

Big advantage over URC Total Control, Control4 or Crestron is that you can program this yourself. No need to contact dealer every time you add a new device.

Thanks for info.

 

[JohnRice]

Received the Elite today. The software quickly migrated the settings from the 950, except it didn't move over any customizations I did to the touch screen. So I had to do those again. That's where some oddities come in. To update the remote, it has to be in communication with the hub, except the feature to customize the touch screen is missing from the mobile app. So, you have to do it on the computer. If your computer is too far away from the hub for the remote to communicate with it while you're updating (like mine is) you have to bring both the remote and the hub to the computer to make that update. Seems like an oversight in design. You can change the hard buttons with the mobile app, but not the touch screen.

Otherwise it seems pretty awesome. Especially for $100 off.

BTW, I set the hub at the back of the room, on a high shelf, aimed at the electronics at the front of the room. It controls everything fine, without needing any extra blasters.

 

[JohnRice]

BTW, what I realize now is that it carried over the default touchscreen changes I made to Activities, such as deleting certain ones and changing their order. What it didn't carry over are the ones I added from other components that weren't there to begin with.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Best Buy has a drop in price on the 950 today

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/logitech-harmony-950-universal-remote-black/5333000.p?skuId=5333000

 

[DaveF]

My wife is a big fan of the “startup channel” feature of the Elite. Turn on TiVo activity and it ensures it starts at HGTV.

I’m going to explore its smart-home features later this year, when I install some Lurton Caseta switches.

And I’m looking at upgrading some AV gear, and being able to explore IP control.

Then I can play with deciding if I want to replace URC with Logitech. Not sure I can, URC has a couple of features the Elite doesn’t.