I purchased a Harmony One several months ago and I've been happy with it, though I do not think it is flawless. Mostly, I entertain a fair bit and I wanted a remote that anyone could pick up, understand and operate. I was previously using a URC MX-500, which functioned very very well, but not everyone was able to understand it without assistance.
So, the good parts:
- excellent hard button layout. Everything makes sense. The buttons are well shaped, well sized, easy to find and easy to click. I pretty much have zero complaints about the hard buttons. I had avoided Harmony remotes prior to The One because of the small and confusing hard button layout, but The One gets it darn near perfect IMO.
- Activities really do make things a breeze for visitors to use this remote. My setup isn't super complicated, but it is definitely too complicated for anyone who does not know A/V well. I've got a CD changer, iPod dock, Oppo DVD/SACD/DVD-Audio player, HD-DVD player, Blu-ray player, Cable HD-DRV and all three gaming systems (PS3, Xbox360 and Wii). With so many HDMI devices, I have 4 of them going into a Monoprice HDMI switch. That feeds one input of my Onkyo TX-SR705 receiver. The PS3 and Xbox360 take up the remaining two HDMI inputs on the receiver. Thankfully, the receiver takes EVERYTHING and shoots out just one HDMI cable to my TV. But switching between it all manually would be darn near impossible for a lot of my guests! So the activities setup with the Harmony One really does the trick! Hit the activities button, select what they want to do and it all swtiches for them - fantastic!
- After CAREFUL setup, I have every control mapped out between the hard buttons and the highly configurable touch screen in a way that makes sense! This is where I think a lot of the detractors of this remote find it to be less than satisfactory. If you RELY on the software to set up this remote, it's going to be a pain! It'll leave a lot of hard buttons blank and it will just dump all of the various controls in alphabetical order onto the touch screen. This is FAR from intuitive. And when setting up the activities, it'll often make strange choices as to what to put on the touch screen and it will leave out vital functions.
But if you really take the time, you can set up the touch screen and hard buttons beautifully! I like to tinker, so this is ok with me. But it sure does take a lot of time. I basically ask my guests and try to make a note of when they find something on the remote confusing. Then I'll see if I can better lay out or label the buttons so that people know exactly what is going on. It's trial and error, it takes a lot of time, but if you do this, it can turn out excellent!
Now the bad:
- biggest complaint is that the text for the touch screen and even for the hard buttons is small. Fine for a young guy like me, but it doesn't work so good for older folks with faltering eye sight. Older guests really have to squint and peer down at the text to see what the buttons say.
- next biggest complaint is the touch screen buttons. As others have said, it's easy to hit the wrong button. It's very easy to hit one of the side arrows rather than a button and also easy to hit either the "device" or "current activity" buttons that are at the bottom of the touch screen. And among the 6 buttons themselves, it can sometimes be easy to hit the wrong one.
You definitely need to look down at the remote to make sure you hit the correct touch screen button, so for a future model, I would love for there to be some sort of physical indicator - such as a very slight ridge between each of the buttons. Just enough to give a physical indication of where each button lies on the touch screen.
- last complaint is the software setup. Like I said, take the time and you can set up the remote beautifully! But it's far from intuitive and you definitely have to take the time to set all the button names, placements and each activity and device individually to get the most from this remote!
The battery does die out somewhat quickly, but it's as simple as putting it into its equally slick-looking charging cradle. It makes solid contact every time and charges quickly, so I see no real problem here.
Overall, I love this remote! It's not perfect, but after taking the time to really configure it, guests find it easy to use without needing my help to tell them how to work it. Physically, it's beautiful and looks really slick and high tech. People LIKE to use it and after I've taken the time to really program it, they find it easy to operate my somewhat complicated system.