Love ‘em or hated them??? Logitech universal remotes

[Rictor133]

Am I the only one that hated to see logitech discontinue their Harmony universal remotes, long Kaput, but was still able to add my relatively new model receiver.

sorry if this has been dealt with before, but I think they are great, perfect for family members that want to go in, turn on a function and have all of the setting automatically adjusted for whatever activity they want.

Yes, some of us like to tinker with the deep functions of our equipment but that is because we are just odd lol.

I dread the day that our Elite gives up it’s ghost, and the family starts fumbling through the various remotes most of which look more like scientific calculators, except these ones are illuminated for late night fumbling.

 

[Trell]

I bought an Elite as a spare as currently there is nothing really comparable at reasonable prices.

I hope Logitech keeps their promise to update their devices database. But that might not be the case as seen in this case on the RME forum by a post from RME:

ADI 2/4 Harmony (Page 1) — ADI-2 & 2/4 Pro series, ADI-2 DAC series — RME User Forum

ADI 2/4 Harmony (Page 1) — ADI-2 & 2/4 Pro series, ADI-2 DAC series — RME User Forum —

forum.rme-audio.de

>>>Unfortunately after the beta test of Logitech IR implementation Logitech went silent. They don't react anymore. I have no clue why. We all know that they stopped making remotes, so maybe they now also stopped to add new devices to their data base - don't know!
…
If Logitech continues to not respond we could add an option to the menu so that the 2/4 Pro uses the commands of the 2 Pro.<<<

 

[MrBoat]

I have never managed to accept the idea of remote control. I have them, but just found them to be somewhat annoying. Just about everyone I have seen with one, tends to end up more indecisive and spastic once they get it in their hands. Great for them, kind of sucky for anyone else in the room watching who doesn't have one. I got over them after living with a channel flipper. Didn't take long.

The remote always ends up in the hands of the self anointed and appointed one. God help you if they fall asleep and you have to fish the fookin thing out from the nether regions of their command and control nest, and again if they happen to wake up momentarily and zap it over to an infomercial instead, while trying to prove they are still awake and in control. This can only work in homes that have strong "snooze you lose" rules.

 

[fmw]

I use Harmony remotes both in the home theater room and the bedroom. They are the best, particularly the old ONE model. It is a shame they weren't viable for Logitech.

 

[highfigh]

I have never managed to accept the idea of remote control. I have them, but just found them to be somewhat annoying. Just about everyone I have seen with one, tends to end up more indecisive and spastic once they get it in their hands. Great for them, kind of sucky for anyone else in the room watching who doesn't have one. I got over them after living with a channel flipper. Didn't take long.

The remote always ends up in the hands of the self anointed and appointed one. God help you if they fall asleep and you have to fish the fookin thing out from the nether regions of their command and control nest, and again if they happen to wake up momentarily and zap it over to an infomercial instead, while trying to prove they are still awake and in control. This can only work in homes that have strong "snooze you lose" rules.

You want everyone to have control over the system? How many ways can that go wrong?

 

[fmw]

I have never managed to accept the idea of remote control. I have them, but just found them to be somewhat annoying. Just about everyone I have seen with one, tends to end up more indecisive and spastic once they get it in their hands. Great for them, kind of sucky for anyone else in the room watching who doesn't have one. I got over them after living with a channel flipper. Didn't take long.

The remote always ends up in the hands of the self anointed and appointed one. God help you if they fall asleep and you have to fish the fookin thing out from the nether regions of their command and control nest, and again if they happen to wake up momentarily and zap it over to an infomercial instead, while trying to prove they are still awake and in control. This can only work in homes that have strong "snooze you lose" rules.

These remotes were and, for some of us, still are amazing. You program them on line and then you get your system going with a single press of a button. Mine turns on the TV, receiver and input device instantly and shuts it all off with a single button. In the meantime I can adjust things from the sofa. The programming is actually a little fussy but you only have to do it when you change a device in your system. Since your programming is saved, changing devices isn't too bad.

 

[highfigh]

I use Harmony remotes both in the home theater room and the bedroom. They are the best, particularly the old ONE model. It is a shame they weren't viable for Logitech.

It's not that they weren't viable, COVID caused this- Logitech is the largest manufacturer of computer keyboards, mice and web cameras for consumers and even as many remotes as they were selling, they found that they were selling ten times as many web cams and those require almost no initial or ongoing customer support. This info came to me from the manager of their Digital Products Group since I was a Beta tester for the Elite/Elite Pro/Pro 2400 models.

Harmony started in 2001 and were bought by Logitech in 2004. I'm a bit surprised nobody has tried to buy Harmony Remotes from Logitech.

They'll support the database- they still support SlingBox more than ten years after discontinuing it and they sold far more remote controls.

 

[Trell]

These remotes were and, for some of us, still are amazing. You program them on line and then you get your system going with a single press of a button. Mine turns on the TV, receiver and input device instantly and shuts it all off with a single button. In the meantime I can adjust things from the sofa. The programming is actually a little fussy but you only have to do it when you change a device in your system. Since your programming is saved, changing devices isn't too bad.

I've had RF based Logitech Harmony remotes for 15 years and is essential for others in my family to operate our home theatre. So when Logitech announced that they where exiting the universal remote business I bought two Harmony Elite with one as a backup, and the old one is still working but packed down.

 

[Trell]

They'll support the database- they still support SlingBox more than ten years after discontinuing it and they sold far more remote controls.

Hopefully, but see my post above what the manufacturer RME experienced this summer/autumn.

 

[3db]

I love Logitech remotes. One of the easiest most intuitive interfaces going for it in terms of programming. I've used even there more advanced features such as building macros within an activity. I have nothing but good things to say about them.

 

[lovinthehd]

I have several, going to try and keep 'em alive. That would be nice if they got revived. I have a Sofabaton waiting in the wings....

 

[MrBoat]

You want everyone to have control over the system? How many ways can that go wrong?

I no longer have a system. No TV, nada. Just two channel music for the most part. But when one remote used to control the tv channels and they who were holding the remote fell asleep, we were stuck watching what was there. And then the constant channel flipping. This wasn't just in my house, either.

Now I don't need one. I control everything from the PC except on/off. I actually turn off the AVR and sub amp off manually. I also manually put CDs in or records on and on another amp, I work the volume and tone controls manually. I don't know, but after a life in construction and other avenues of skilled labor, these additional moves seem so trivial. Per the thread title, "I" neither loved, or hated them. Just find no use for it. If it's what "you" like and it makes you happy, then I am all for it.

 

[MR.MAGOO]

Really liked my Logitech Harmony 650, but have not yet reprogrammed it with my newer audio / video gear. Too lazy I guess.

 

[DigitalDawn]

As an integrator, I was never a fan of Logitech remotes -- instead depending on Pronto, URC and later, Control4. But, I can definitely see the attraction for an end user, and I wish there were similar and newer options for consumers.

URC has very, very nice remotes, but they are designed only for installers. Perhaps they should look at coming out with a new model designed for the end user, with simplified software. I'm sure it would sell well. The only issue is that URC dealers would probably not be very happy with this. To be honest, the person who would buy/use such a remote might not be the standard client anyway.

 

[BMXTRIX]

This has been discussed to some extent here already. Logitech leaving the universal remote game is a huge hit to the industry IMO. They had several very strong factors going for them, mostly their very deep library of product that they could control and a actual user interface which allowed end-users to setup and change things. You only needed that ONE person in the home who knew how to set them up, then everyone could benefit from the remote.

I think the second biggest strength of their remotes was Logitech the company. Logitech was able to keep costs in line which really did make the remotes quite affordable. Plus, their build quality was respectable enough and coming from a company that does a ton of human interface devices, so they know their stuff.

A durable, well priced, well supported product that works well? How often does that actually exist in this world? Now they aren't making them anymore, and hearing that customer service is falling off doesn't shock me in the least. The real wish would be that someone would take over for them, or that they would spin it off so it could be just Harmony again, as it started out as.

I am sure there will be more universal remotes that come out which work just fine. But, the history and stability of Harmony is pretty tough to beat.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Unfortunately, Not all of Logitech's Harmony remotes were durable and well-built. A case in point is the notorious Harmony 890. They dropped the ball on that design, particularly the switch keys, which were guaranteed to break after only one year of use. So I'm somewhat sad that they are stopped making more of them, but at the same time, not very much so. I was burned by 890 quality, and the programming wasn't that great either.

harmony 890 buttons not working - Google Search

 

[highfigh]

Hopefully, but see my post above what the manufacturer RME experienced this summer/autumn.

I raised this concern when the manager of the Digital Products Group called to tell me about Harmony being shut down- again, if they still support SlingBox, they seem to care that millions of their remotes are out there. Whether it's a matter of giving a crap about the people who bought them, that's likely another issue. When I have called Harmony support, I usually ask if anyone at Logitech has come to their senses and they just say "Not that I know of".

I still don't know why they shut it down- it probably had to do with the cost of providing support to users. However, they were making a real dent in URC's sales and URC responded by adding a Help button, programming accelerators and use 'Activity' as the name for the macro that starts the sequence which sends all of the commands that allow the system to do 'Watch TV', Watch DVD/BD', etc and that came from Harmony.

URC trainers used to make fun of Harmony because URC is a professional-only remote and Harmony is consumer-facing, but they also said they (URC) had the most complete IR database in the industry- that's crap, Harmony's database is definitely better and their people can/could do things with the data that URC was almost unwilling to do. URC did, however, start using remote access to see how/where the program had errors, which is very helpful. The last times (pre-COVID) I went to URC training, they said nothing about Harmony.

 

[highfigh]

Unfortunately, Not all of Logitech's Harmony remotes were durable and well-built. A case in point is the notorious Harmony 890. They dropped the ball on that design, particularly the switch keys, which were guaranteed to break after only one year of use. So I'm somewhat sad that they are stopped making more of them, but at the same time, not very much so. I was burned by 890 quality, and the programming wasn't that great either.

harmony 890 buttons not working - Google Search

It's not easy to seal a remote control so that liquids and food residue can't enter- that's what made most of the remotes fail before my customers called to tell me that some of the buttons didn't work.

The old programming was a bit tricky to learn and it wasn't intuitive, but after working with it for awhile, I was able to do a lot of custom button assignments.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

It's not easy to seal a remote control so that liquids and food residue can't enter- that's what made most of the remotes fail before my customers called to tell me that some of the buttons didn't work.

With 890 the issue wasn't liquids or food residue. It was down to button switches with were not designed to be nearly robust enough. Case in point most used controls, such as volume, always died first.
This is not to throw shade on all of their controllers, but I have URC's MX-850 remote for the last 10 years. I got it right after Harmony 890 died. It still works like new with zero issues.

 

[cerwinmad]

I loved mine but google TV and the musicast app for my receiver killed it. I've always had great results using arc so yeah...... was fun programming and sorting routines etc.