Device brings remote control Harmony to the living room

---

Product: Logitech Harmony 885 Universal Remote
Website: WWW.LOGITECH.COM
System Requirements: N/A
Price: €200, £130, $200

---

MOST PEOPLE will find themselves surrounded by a plethora of remotes these days to control the variety of entertainment systems we have hooked together. There's the TV, the DVD player, the set top box, the game console and the entertainment centre.

Universal remotes have been around for quite a while, but they've usually involved entering complicated codes that only help somewhat and are either so sparsely populated that you have to keep going back to your original remotes or so densely covered in buttons that you can find the one you need.

All boxed up

Logitech's Harmony 885 Universal remote attempts to change all that by acting as a truly universal remote able to control just about anything with an IR port. Along with the remote itself, in the very well sealed box you'll find the recharging station, power adaptor, rechargeable battery, USB data cable and a CD containing the Harmony setup software.

Everything you need

The remote itself is pretty big, although not much bigger than most TV remotes around today and is dominated by the colour screen near the top with eight corresponding buttons down each side of the display. Below that you'll find a range of the usual buttons you'll need on a remote clustered into groups, as well as an oval four-way navigational control around a main OK button. The remote is well designed and comfortable to hold and accessing all the buttons is pretty easy. The backlighting could have been better as it is difficult to make out the individual keys in low light.

The remote in all its glory

What makes this remote stand out above the competition is the software that comes with it. It makes a lot of sense as it means the remote can be programmed intuitively rather than via a complicated series of button presses as seen with most universal remotes that boast the ability to 'learn' commands from the original remotes. Unfortunately the software is quite slow and unresponsive running on an aging notebook but ultimately it works just fine and you only really use it when you're configuring the remote.

After creating an log in account the software makes configuring the various devices you'd like to control as easy as entering the make and model name. If the device is in the database then the remote can just be updated with each of devices. The main attraction of the Harmony remote is the ability to not only configure a variety of devices but also the option of creating activities, several of which are automatically created based on the range of devices you initially set up. Activities will sequentially turn on the relevant devices and set them to the correct settings to perform that activity. So for instance the 'Watch DVD' activity will switch on the relevant devices you own like the TV, DVD player and speaker system and it will the make sure the TV is set on the input channel of the DVD player and that the speakers are set to the correct input as well. If your lighting and popcorn machine has an IR sensor then you can it will even dim the lights and get the popcorn popping. Each action within an activity is completely configurable so you have it change the volume on you speakers while adjusting channels on your set top box and colour controls on your TV so you don't even have to keep switching between devices.

The software interface

As you might expect all this flexibility comes at a price, namely it can take some time to get things working just the way you want them to, but the great thing is that the software makes it easy to fiddle with each of the devices and activities until you have them doing precisely what you want. It's also just as simple to create and delete activities and devices. After you first get things going you'll find yourself going backwards and forwards between the living room and the study as you find little things you want to tweak and adjust and it's at this point that the several minutes that the remote can take to update with the new settings can get really annoying, but as mentioned before this is really only an issue in the beginning and you'll barely touch the software again until you buy a new device.

The remote also comes with a very other nifty features such as a tilt sensor so it lights up when you pick it up and the screen can be configured with a background of your choice or even a slideshow, but why anyone, anywhere, ever would want a slideshow on a small screen on their remote control is entirely beyond us. The recharging station is also nice as it helps the lost remote syndrome by creating a single place where the remote can usually be found.

In Short
As with most devices that try to provide a wide range of functions it can take some time to get things working exactly as you'd like, but once you've spent the time tweaking everything it makes life so much more convenient. We think this is a brilliant example of a smart device because it doesn't try and be smarter than you, it's happy to learn and to be told how you want it to work rather than attempting to bend you around its silicon will.

The Good
Can control just about everything with an IR port
Can learn from another remote

The Bad
One of the most expensive universal remotes out there
Can take a lot of time to set up
Can have some configuration issues

The Ugly
Software and updating the remote is slow

Bartender's Report