High end universal remotes

[Jesse]

URC. Accept no substitute.

You do need to buy from an authorized dealer to get software that updates. I have bought a few from Surfremotecontrol.com. They do not advertise price on their website, so you will have to call. Their prices are awesome and they will provide an update-able software package.

I would go for the 850.

Jesse

[stevech]

I noted that the MX-5000 remote has two-way WiFi.
Alas, the price is, er, a bit high.

[reggie14]

I've never really understood all the love for the URC remotes over the Harmony remotes. I have a Harmony One and have been extremely happy with it. I don't understand what you can do with a URC remote that you can't do with a Harmony remote. I should clarify that by saying what you'd actually want to do with a Harmony remote, but can't. My Harmony remote seems pretty versatile, and I love how activities work on it. Plus the layout is great. I think its a better layout than the URC remotes I've seen. Rubber buttons might have been nice, but its still a joy to use. And I think the build quality is quite good.

The Harmony 650 is "only" $75, and is pretty close to the Harmony One in features.

[stanger89]

The two big things for me are I abhor the Harmony wizard-driven software. I find it hard to use due to the wizardness. While in contrast I fight the URC software straitforward and very powerful.

The second is the hardware, I've not met a Harmony that I didn't think felt like a cheap toy. IMO they feel cheaper than even the cheap remotes that come with most stuff, like a step down, with tiny cheap plastic buttons. Where as the URCs definitely feel like a step up and have "normal sized" buttons that have a very nice, solid tactile feel.

It basically comes down do this, I bought a Harmony once, I returned it not long after. I've got a URC at each TV now and love them both.

[jptheripper]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I've never really understood all the love for the URC remotes over the Harmony remotes. I have a Harmony One and have been extremely happy with it. I don't understand what you can do with a URC remote that you can't do with a Harmony remote. I should clarify that by saying what you'd actually want to do with a Harmony remote, but can't. My Harmony remote seems pretty versatile, and I love how activities work on it. Plus the layout is great. I think its a better layout than the URC remotes I've seen. Rubber buttons might have been nice, but its still a joy to use. And I think the build quality is quite good.

The Harmony 650 is "only" $75, and is pretty close to the Harmony One in features.

Things I am missing?
Harmony functionally works, but my two major needs are
1: Be able to drop it, even a short distance, without cheap plastic shattering into bits
2: Buy dinner after I buy the remote.

My question is what does the Harmony (the more expensive one) give you that the cheaper alternative doesnt?

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by jptheripper

Things I am missing?
Harmony functionally works, but my two major needs are
1: Be able to drop it, even a short distance, without cheap plastic shattering into bits
2: Buy dinner after I buy the remote.

My question is what does the Harmony (the more expensive one) give you that the cheaper alternative doesnt?

I've been pretty hard on my Harmony One, yet it continues working. I don't really understand the concern over build quality. I do have a carpeted floor though.

I'm not sure what alternative you're talking about. In my mind, the "activities" feature is really the compelling feature of a Harmony remote. Press one button to switch from playing a DVD on your blu-ray player, to turning on Sage. The remote keeps track of which components are on in each activity, so it knows what it has to do to each AV component to switch modes. I don't know how easy it is to duplicate that functionality with even a URC remote. Presumably you can, but do you have to spend a month learning how to program the remote to do it?

By the way, the Harmony remote was been extremely well accepted by my girlfriend and visitors. I used to have to write up instructions for guests on how to turn on the TV. The Harmony remote immediately put an end to that.

[samgreco]

Again I agree with Stanger on this. #1 is Harmony wizardness. I found that I needed to have things turn on in a specific order and to have pauses in between commands to make some things work and the wizard just would not let me do it the way I needed. The URC software let me have macros that worked in exactly the right way.

And I really like the heft and solidness of these things.

AND does anyone here have a Harmony that has lasted near 10 years?

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by samgreco

Again I agree with Stanger on this. #1 is Harmony wizardness. I found that I needed to have things turn on in a specific order and to have pauses in between commands to make some things work and the wizard just would not let me do it the way I needed. The URC software let me have macros that worked in exactly the right way.

For what its worth, you can certainly change the order of commands and add pauses. Sort of. For instance, you can change the order in which commands are sent to a group of devices, e.g., changing the order in which devices are powered on. You can also tell Harmony how long pauses should be between commands sent to the same device, and I think commands sent to different devices. But I think the Harmony software looks at a bunch of different factors, including device power-on order, and the pauses for each device involved in an activity (including power-on pauses, if you have to wait a couple seconds before sending a command to a device after its first turned on), to determine the specific order in which to send commands. That is, I think it tries to do some optimization for you.

I've never played around with writing macros in the Harmony software, just activities. I've never seen a reason to write a macro. I don't know what is and isn't possible with them.

I sort of have a love-hate relationship with the Harmony wizard. In some ways its nice. I was able to get my remotes up and running with my stereo and Sage extenders in about an hour. Of that, it took took about 10 minutes to initially go through the wizard, selecting my devices and creating activities, and about 50 minutes to figure out how to tweak the orders and pauses. Logitech really hides where some of those more advanced tweaks are. They're hidden within a troubleshooting wizard, and you need to know exactly how to answer the questions the wizard asks to be given an opportunity to change the settings. Still, one hour and I was ready to go. I suspect the URC setup would take a lot more time and effort.

Can you duplicate the "activities" functions of the Harmony remotes on the URC remotes? I don't have a particular affinity to the Harmony remotes, but I do really, really like the "activities" functions.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by reggie14

For what its worth, you can certainly change the order of commands and add pauses. Sort of.

I sort of have a love-hate relationship with the Harmony wizard.

Logitech really hides where some of those more advanced tweaks are. They're hidden within a troubleshooting wizard, and you need to know exactly how to answer the questions the wizard asks to be given an opportunity to change the settings.

This is my point. With a Harmony you have to figure out how to "trick" the wizards into letting you do what you want. I found that extremely frustrating given that I knew exactly what I wanted/needed. With a URC, you just do it.

Still, one hour and I was ready to go. I suspect the URC setup would take a lot more time and effort.

I don't recall timing it, but it couldn't have taken me more than like an hour or two to do the initial setup on my URC.

That said, I do a lot of programming so I know how think through the steps/variables that need to be set up to get a URC macro work.

Can you duplicate the "activities" functions of the Harmony remotes on the URC remotes?

Absolutely. Despite the fact that URC CCP calls them "devices" they are in fact far, far more than that. I have, on the main screen of my MX880, four "Devices" which are in fact activities. When you select "TV" it fires a macro that send the appropriate commands, sets the appropriate variables, and waits the appropriate delays to fire up the projector, SSP, and HD200, switch to the correct inputs, reset the aspect ratio and jump to the HD200's "device" so that everything is on and the remote is configured to control SageTV including volume punchthrough to the SSP. Now the thing that's great about a URC over a harmony is I wanted one of the soft buttons on my TV/SageTV device/activity to toggle the aspect ratio on my projector, with URC's software you just do it, I'm not entirely sure that's possible on a Harmony, and if it is, I imagine you've got to trick a wizard into allowing it.

I've got the same setups for my Blu-ray and Xbox devices/activities, plus a shutdown activity/macro and a help page in case some IR command got dropped. And all of this is controlled via RF from the remote to the IR receiver and blasters in the media cabinet behind the bar at the back of the HT.

[wayner]

I fail to see what is wrong with the Harmony wizard process? I have had about 8 of them through the years and I bought my first one about 8-9 years ago when they were still a small Canadian company before the Logitech acquisition.

I do agree that there are issues with Harmony build quality. I have had two 880s need replacing due to buttons that stopped working. I have had other similar hardware issues as well.

[derelicte1]

+1 for urc. The remotes are built like tanks (great if you have kids and tile floors).

I despise their software update policy, though. They really pissed me off when they changed their policy a few years ago.

[Ender]

I am a fan of the Harmony remotes, although I have gone through about four in the last eight, or nine years.... Mostly due to drops to the concrete floor, my sister's cat which somehow became mine when she left for college has no sense when it comes to the sensitivity of electronics...

I do recall buying a Marantz RC2000 MKII some time back before my foray into the harmony remotes... Paid in the range of $300, not sure now was soo long ago. Too bad it died due to a broken IR emitter once again from falls.

The thing I have with Logitech is every time i settle on a product of theirs, they go and discontinue it. Be it my Harmony 550, or my G3 laser mouse. It is difficult to find a good mouse that is useable left handed.

SO yeah, I would get another Harmony in a heartbeat.