At CES Unveiled yesterday, we got a sneak peek of Logitech's newest touchscreen remote, the Harmony 1100. Of course, we weren't allowed to report about it until today. The new remote differs from the original Harmony 1000 in a number of ways. First, it's black, not two-tone silver. Second, Logitech promises it won't randomly freeze up like the 1000 did (though I'm not sure that's something that was ever actually admitted to...) A customizable, 3.5-inch full-color touch screen adorns the front and hard buttons are limited to Volume, Channel, Mute, Replay and Navigation controls (less than the 1000). This remote is more configurable than the 1000 in that Logitech is claiming users can do more to customize the LCD screen and arrangement of buttons and controls.
Discuss "Logitech Harmony 1100 RF Touchscreen Remote" here.
Read the article.
I have some comments about their remotes and while they will probably sound awfully haesh, it's because I lost a buttload because of their issues. I won't charge a customer because a product has problems caused by growing pains and bringing a product to market before it's ready, so...
Harmony was making changes to the available buttons early on in the 1000's life but they weren't coming very fast and because of the remote's OS, they were difficult to implement, according to tier 2 dealer support. Also, they're painfully aware of the freeze-up issue and won't deny it existed. They finally fixed that in August of '07, about the time they took Z-wave control and killed their dealer partnership program, both with absolutely no communication with their distributors or dealers. All of the buttons are in the same places, although the lines at the sides of the touch screen are new, as is the color.
I also have to disagree about the batteries "never needing replacement". I just had a customer call with a <1 year old Harmony 890 Pro (the shiny new nickel they tossed to people who had major problems and complaints with the 1000) because at first, it wouldn't always light up when placed in the charging cradle and when I went on Friday, the battery had bulged and was totally dead. She doesn't leave it in the charger, either. Harmony only sells replacement batteries through their website and not through dealers or distributors. In fact, when I have called about batteries, tech support knew very little about what generic replacements will work and have the same capacity, so they refer people to Batteries Plus or Radio Shack. The 890 uses a 950 mAh 3.7V battery and the 1000 uses a 1350mAh 3.7V, neither of which is carried by these retailers although BP has a 750mAh part. Best Buy can't get them, a dealer shouldn't have to stock them and I really don't consider making them available only online to be good customer service, especially when a complex system makes using the OEM remotes A) confusing, B) frustrating and C) unnecessary when it would be easy enough to have a supply network in place or an available direct replacement instead of having to call or drive around, hoping to find one.
One thing I would like to see is this style with hard buttons for the numbers.
That said, I really like the 1000 and it will do things they tell people it won't. The two I sold are at one house, one for each system and there is some overlap of control, so the main one can power up/down and control volume for the whole house system, if needed. Their daughter was 3-1/2 when I had the system to the point of being operable but needing fine tuning of the programming and if she wanted to watch a DVD or Cable, she was completely able to. She also told her mom that she didn't like to go to her cousin's house because she didn't like the way their system worked.