Bringing Harmony back into the home

I have been living with my wife but without Harmony ever since I upgraded my AV center with a new blueray player.

Years ago the TV controlled everything with a built in DVD player using the RCA remote control. Then came the Comcast HD DVR and another remote. I added surround sound with another remote. The final sin was my new blueray player with a remote containing 45 buttons.

I programmed the Comcast remote to turn on all 3 TV devices, amp, tv and cable box, but changing anything other than channels and volume was a major pain, select TV then input ect. Playing a DVD was a major pain, find the amps remote, select a new input, get the DVR remote, turn it on, fumble thru the keys and finding pause in a dark room was hit or miss with the stop button located next to it.

Then I ran across an article in the GR press this week about universal remotes and they reviewed the high end Harmony from logitech. Being a logitech customer I got an email offer with a discounted price on the Harmony the next day, but walking thru Costco I saw the Harmony 700 on sale for $87.99 and picked it up on Wednesday.

The Harmony has a USB interface to your computer for setup, enter your devices/model numbers and the web site will guide you thru setting up 4 activities. Press watch TV and it will turn on my TV, select the input, turn on the amp and select the input and output and turn on the comcast box.

Select watch a movie and it turns off the comcast box, changes the amps input and turns on my blueray player.

The model 700 can control up to 6 devices. It has matching color buttons to jive with my blueray player, (netflix, youtube, pandora or blockbuster).

What I really like is the display screen that allows you to move thru various menus depending on the device you want to control. For example my AV AMP has 32 menus, I can select the surround settings all from the Harmony remote.

Another feature, when you pick it up all the keys light up so you can see what you are looking for in the dark room. It has a large IR lens on the front along with a small one on the back so aiming is easy.