Remote Woes

So it only took about a day of juggling four remotes (cable box, DVD, receiver, TV) before I got really annoyed. I've used low budget universal remotes before; the type where you plug in four digit codes for your components and they may or may not work. They're a little easier than dealing with multiple remotes, but they still leave something to be desired.

I'd heard about Logitech's Harmony remotes but didn't know much about them, so it was back to researching. After a while I decided that the best buy was easily the one I passed at Costco while looking at TVs. So after dropping the kids off I made yet another trip over and snatched up a remote. I didn't get a chance to fiddle with it until that night when the kids were asleep.

It's light years beyond any remote I've ever used before. First off, there's no looking up lists of codes and typing them in, hoping that they'll work. Everything is done via a computer interface. You plug in the type and model number of your components and it checks a database and loads in all the commands it needs. It also groups things into 'Activities'. With a normal universal remote, you'd push a button for the TV, then the power button, then a button for the DVD player, then the power button, then a button for the cablebox, then the power button... Then your finger would fall off.

Now that my remote is programmed, it's way easier. I pick up the remote and its motion sensor turns the backlight on. The LCD display at the top of the remote has a list of all the activities I've programmed. I push the one for 'Watch a DVD' and keep the remote pointed at the components.

It turns on the TV, receiver and DVD player and switches everything over to the correct inputs for playing a DVD. Awesome.

Each new activity that starts also loads a new set of buttons in the LCD display, all of which are customizable. For instance, when I'm watching TV, I've got buttons to get to the DVR menu on the cablebox, the On-Demand menu, the aspect settings for the TV and a list of favorite channels. If I hit the favorite channels button, all the buttons on the LCD reload and are now a list of all the channels we watch the most. I even found icons on line for all the channels, which is just wonderfully geeky.

This remote is just really, really cool. I want to get an IR controlled dimmer switch so I can run the lights with it. Maybe a ceiling fan, too. Sweet.