I purchased the Logitech Harmony remote not expecting to like it; the concept of the “universal remote” usually means removing a number of key features in favor of a generic, all-purpose use that usually leaves you wanting more. Part of the problem is that those who swear by the universal remote are usually not the people who are really pushing the limits of their technology. If you’re really looking for something that turns on the TV, selects a channel, changes the volume and then turns the whole thing off again then a universal remote is for you. If you use DVR functions, OnDemand or Search capabilities, or do anything with your television’s menu then the whole concept falls apart fairly quickly.
The Logitech Harmony remote promised to preserve detailed functions and features, and allow for remote programming that is more “drag and drop” and less “search the house for old equipment manuals, get frustrated and throw everything in the garbage”. In other words, it’s meant to be the smart remote for the newly smart technology world.
Purchasing the Logitech Harmony is a test of your willpower. Clocking in at over $300 for a remote feels like you’re firmly in the camp of first-world, one-percenter problems. But I had the same feeling with the Hue Lights, and those turned out to be amazing, so gritting my teeth I decided to give it a shot.
Physical setup involving some basic beacon points and IR receivers was surprisingly easy. I’m no fan of IR technology, which tends to just leave orphan plastic hanging around the room. But this was simpler and easier, and also relatively hidden once installed.
Setting up the software was another story. The remote plugged in easily enough, but then came multiple installs of Silverlight. When the browser crashed mid-setup (which may or may not have had anything to do with Harmony) Silverlight had to be installed again. I haven’t heard Silverlight in any form for a good 2-3 years, so seeing it suddenly appear here wasn’t a good sign. After multiple repeats of installing, removing, and starting over I finally got the remote fully sync’d and ready to accept commands. My feeling is that many people (particularly the less tech-savy that the remote claimed to help) would have given up through this process and taken the remote back to the store.
Setting up the various menu options was, as advertised, extremely easy. It was a pleasant surprise to click through a large number of supported devices even though auto-detect features didn’t work and the model number still needed to be located… meaning I had to dig through a pile of paperwork anyway. But the general setup once the remote was in sync with the laptop was good.
The first week of use was a welcome surprise. Battery life was good, the functions that needed to be accessed were available, and flipping between a Comcast box and AppleTV unit was easy and worked well. The PS3 worked well for movies and online content, but not for games… although nobody in their right mind would want to play games with it anyway. I was starting to feel like I was going to be proven wrong again that the purchase was a mistake… the move from four remotes floating around to one was nice. Or maybe I was just getting older.
It was in the following weeks that things started to stumble. Functions on the equipment seemed to randomly get dropped. The interaction between the AV Unit and the TV fell apart to the point that the AV unit hand to be turned off manually. Volume on the Apple TV sometimes didn’t work properly. TV channel switching sometimes took me to half of the number entered… hitting the icon for channel “104” might go to “10”. Since I wasn’t entering in the numbers this seemed strange and buggy.
Then the remote decided it needed a firmware update. Repeat the interaction with the browser, Silverlight, WiFi (which now wasn’t getting a connection properly) and I spent nearly two hours fighting with the remote to get it operational again. During that process out came all of the old remotes and suddenly having four or five of them laying around didn’t seem so bad; the need to get down to one seemed prissy and self-indulgent.
Even when the remote was functioning again all of the old flaws I had briefly overlooked when I was happy to have only one device to deal with came back. It also seemed to have lost features; I replaced a PS3 with a PS4 and removed it from the remote (or so I thought) but the PS3 remained ghosted inside the remote, unable to be removed. Interaction now with the game system was stilted and broken. Volume worked less frequently, and sometimes Apple TV seemed to ignore it completely. Devices that were turned off sometimes came back on seconds later, as if the command to power off was sent twice by accident.
One of the benefits to the Harmony remote is supposedly the app tie-in, which allows you to also control everything from an app rather than the remote itself. This worked OK, but the flaws in the system were also present in the app making it functionally broken at times. Sure, this in theory meant you could get rid of all the remotes in your house, but the numerous bugs still existed.
Looking at the website and troubleshooting tips, Logitech basically points out that the problem is likely with your devices and not with their system. This may be true, but it doesn’t really help sell their product if it isn’t fully usable because your devices have glitches. Part of the benefit of a system like this would be to smart command the interaction to work around errors in the device; basically send two power off commands to the device if there was a problem at the end-unit. By punting these errors back to the devices it feels more like Harmony is getting out of the hard stuff… and thus I find myself left with the impression I had before I started: the “universal remote” is really for basic functions only.
My brief time spent happy with the product informed me that a “smart remote” tied into “smart devices” would be a great product… this just isn’t it.
