Logitech Harmony 550 Universal Remote Control

by Logitech

Product Details

• Item Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000EUGX70
• Item model number: 550
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (728 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2001

Product Description

Model: 550

From the Manufacturer

Logitech Harmony 550: Control your Entertainment Universe with One Touch

Say goodbye to juggling multiple remotes. Harmony 550 gives you one-touch control of your entire home entertainment system. Want to watch TV? See a movie? Listen to music? Play a game? Start your activity with one touch. Patented Smart State Technology takes care of turning on, or off, all the right components. It's the remote everyone can use. No cheat sheets. No complicated button sequences. No numb thumb. Harmony 550 is the easier, more affordable way to take complete command of your entertainment.

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Key Features

		One-touch activity control for easy access to all your entertainment One trigger finger is all you need. Choose the activity you want and the remote does the work for you. Select "Watch a DVD" and Harmony 550 will power on your TV, DVD player, stereo receiver, set all the inputs and even press play. What could be easier? Enjoy programmable buttons that make your favorite activities easy to access. Or press the Sound and Picture buttons to instantly tame tough configurations like switching picture aspect ratios and sound modes.
		High style, comfort and convenience at your fingertips Why settle for another boring remote? Harmony 550's comfort-grip shape and slim-line ergonomic design combine eye-catching comfort and style. The right controls are in the right places, intelligently arranged so they're easy to reach. The fully backlit controls and display make it to easy navigate your entertainment options, even in home movie-theater darkness. There's also a handy "help" button, so anyone from the kids to the babysitter can easily access their favorite TV shows, music, movies and games.
		Controls virtually any component you own now and add later Harmony 550 controls up to 15 home theater components simultaneously—everything from HDTVs and PVRs/DVRs to Blu-Ray disc players and VCRs. With the world's largest A/V control database, Harmony remotes support more than 250,000 home entertainment components from 5,000 brands. So your remote is never out of date. You'll always be in control of the components you own today and add tomorrow, even if they're mixed brands.
		Simple to set up. Simple to get support. Your Harmony guided set-up wizard does the programming, so you don't have to. Just connect the remote to your computer, access the online wizard, answer a few questions and you're ready to control even the most complex system. Problems? Questions?  Get live support, free, over the phone or online. Getting control of your entertainment system couldn't be any simpler.

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Get the Logitech Harmony Adapter for PLAYSTATION 3. Finally, control movies on your PS3 — drama free.

Wish you could control all your movies, music, games and entertainment gear — including your PLAYSTATION 3 — with one remote? Wish granted. Add one touch PS3 control to any Harmony remote with the new Logitech Harmony Adapter for PLAYSTATION 3. Now your entire entertainment system and every PS3 command is at your fingertips. Want to watch a DVD or Blue-ray Disc movie? Play a game? Turn the console on or off? Easy. Just press one button on the remote to experience instant entertainment gratification.

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Which Harmony Is Right For You?

Find out what other Logitech Harmony Advanced Universal Remotes fit your audio & video set-ups. Browse more Harmony remotes and see which one is right for you.

	Harmony 510 Complete Control with a single remote.	Harmony 550 Added convenience and control.	Harmony 670 The Harmony designed for your DVR.	Harmony One Full color touch screen with intuitive button layout.	Harmony 890 Controls out of sight devices with RF wireless technology.	Harmony 1100 Powerful home entertainment control through a customizable 3.5-inch color touch screen.

	Control Features Harmony 510 Harmony 550 Harmony 670 Harmony One Harmony 890 Harmony 1100
	Number of devices supported Up to 5 Up to 15 Up to 15 Up to 15 Up to 15 Up to 15 Black and white LCD display       Color LCD display       Easy-to-read  touch screen         Preset activity buttons           Layout optimized for DVR / TiVo     Contoured design to fit comfortably in your hand           Customizable buttons so you decide what is on the screen Customizable screens for more powerful personalization           RF code support for devices in cabinets or behind walls         RF Wireless Extender for RF connection         available separately
	Power Management Harmony 510 Harmony 550 Harmony 670 Harmony One Harmony 890 Harmony 1100
	AAA Battery Operated (included)       Recharging cradle so you don't need to worry about batteries
	With Every Harmony Remote Harmony 510 Harmony 550 Harmony 670 Harmony One Harmony 890 Harmony 1100
	Handy help button so you're never stuck Guided, online set up, with live support if you hit a snag Controls 225,000+ devices from 5,000+ brands so you know Harmony will work with your devices, today and tomorrow Warranty 1 Year 1 Year 1 Year 1 Year 1 Year 1 Year
	System Support Harmony 510 Harmony 550 Harmony 670 Harmony One Harmony 890 Harmony 1100
	Windows Vista, XP Mac OS X (8.3 and above)

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What's in the Box

Package Contents Logitech Harmony 550 Advanced Universal Remote USB cable Installation CD Installation guide 4 AAA batteries 1-year warranty

System Requirements PC Windows 2000, XP, Vista USB port CD-ROM drive Internet access Mac Macintosh OS X 10.3 or later USB port CD-Rom drive Internet access

Product Description

The Logitech Harmony 550 Remote Control brings Logitech smarts for the home theater. The entire Home Entertainment system can be accessed with just the push of a button.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Remote, controls everything including my Roomba!, September 3, 2006

By 

slick045 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Logitech Harmony 550 Universal Remote Control (Electronics)

Well, my Sima SUR-20 remote finally died after 5 years, so I had to find a replacement. I decided that I wanted a true universal/learning remote that had more than just a touchscreen. I started my search with Harmony because I have heard a lot of good things about them. My criteria included: learning, full macros, configurable, easy to use for less technologically advanced people, good button lay out, and no rechargeable batteries. This pretty much ruled out the 880, 720, and 890. Honestly, I'm not that big a fan of the peanut shape anyhow. So, my real choices became the 520 and 550. Not too much difference, mainly button layout and device limitations. In the end, I like the 550 layout best.

I installed the software fairly easily. I made sure NOT to install the additional software that checks for updates, and I removed the software from the startup menu. Next I collected all the device model numbers. 10 minutes later I had the first iteration of my remote up and running. I spent the next hour tweaking the labels and layout of the buttons in my activities.

The result is that all my devices are setup perfectly (TV, DVD, Home Theater, Cable Box/DVR, Roomba, and my HP Laptop). The 550 does a great job of switching inputs on my TV and Receiver. Actually, I have more functionality with this remote than on the remote that came with my dvr (skip forward)!

I had equal ease of setup with my laptop and roomba. The only real negative is the speed, or lack thereof, of the software. The program is slow and it occasionally freezes for a couple minutes at a time. However, since you only need to use it when you setup a new device, it's not a deal breaker for me.

The remote is intuitive enough for most anyone. The help button easily walks you through any issues you might have when turning on or switching between activities. The activities are easy to configure and I was even able to set it up to leave my DVR on all the time.

All in all, the remote is great. I think that it is important to compare it to other universal remotes before complaining about it. It may not be as quick as entering a couple of codes, but the benefits are extremely worth it!

66 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Love / Hate Relationship, December 23, 2006

By 

RiK - See all my reviews

This review is from: Logitech Harmony 550 Universal Remote Control (Electronics)

Summary:

A great remote, but one that may take many hours of your time to set up

Pros:
- Good ergonomics
- Nice tactile feel on buttons
- Highly configurable
- Seems to put out a strong signal (better then my factory remotes)
- Non-rechargable (I consider this a plus)

Cons:
- Setup is easy, but getting it right can take hours
- Not easy to map device buttons to activity buttons
- No dedicated "decimal point" for tuning digital stations
- Remote selection during setup doesn't allow you to pick from a list

I'll preface this short review by saying that I manage a group at work tasked with making human / computer interfaces work well. So I have a decent amount of experience in this area (but I'm also picky - caveat emptor). Having said that, I found that Logitech tried very hard to get things right, but are still missing the mark in a few areas.

I started by not installing the Logitech software from the disk (based on suggestions I had read here), but instead downloaded the software from the Logitech site. No installation problems, and my firewall software recognized and allowed the Logitech software to pass through without incident. I plugged the 550 into a USB port and XP recognized it and I was transported to the Logitech setup software. Good start.

The first part where I had issue was in telling the software what devices I had. You have to type in the name of your model numbers after selecting the manufacturer, and there is no real indication as to whether the software recognized the device or not. It would have been much better to select the device from a list.

After the devices are set up, you then tell the software what activities you want it to memorize. This is very powerful, a wizard-based method of macro programming. I soon had it programmed to perform the four activities I wanted (watch tv, watch dvd, listen to iPod, listen to music). I then downloaded the commands to the remote and tested it out.

This is where the issues started. Seems that some of the commands weren't recognized, and I was forced to endure an hours-long process of training the remote some of my specific commands. In most cases I believe that the software recognized the brand of my device, but not necessarily the particular model (I have Philips, Denon, and Sony devices - not really off-brand). Thus there were some generic commands that weren't right for my particular model. So I had to slowly discover which buttons worked and which did not, then go back and teach the unlearned commands to the remote. While this was not completely unexpected, it was very time-consuming and almost negated the value of the setup wizard.

The final issue that I had was in properly setting up activities. This takes a lot of trial and error. Additionally, there is no easy way to map device commands to activity commands. For example, I had to write down the TV remote commands down on a spare envelope and then manually input them into the activity commands section.

I can not properly express the joy I felt when, after hours of frustration, I finally had everything mapped out properly. The device works like a charm, and I am very satisfied with it overall. I'm sure that I'll completely love it after the setup fiasco has faded a bit.

So in summary, I would rate the device itself "5 out of 5", and the setup software "3 out of 5". Anyone with a fair degree of sophistication will be able to get it up and running, and behaving exactly the way they want it. But it may take several hours to do so.

106 of 114 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great upgrade to a great product, November 2, 2006

By 

M. Bauer "M." (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Logitech Harmony 550 Universal Remote Control (Electronics)

I have owned one of the orginal Harmony remotes for three years, and just upgraded to the new 550.

Other reviewers describe the effectiveness of Harmony's "activities" based set up, and it truly is a great solution for the complicated "many remotes on the coffee table" problem. I'd like to address how easy it was to upgrade from an older model to the 550.

I spent about 45 minutes perfecting my first Harmony using the online programming interface, and found it to be easy to use and comprehensive. When I unpacked my new 550, all I had to do was plug the remote into my computer's USB port, install the updated software (5 minutes), and download all of my existing programming (another 5 minutes). It worked perfectly!

Great new features:

The rubberized plastic back of the 550 makes it much less likely to slip off a table and fall to the floor.

The backlit LCD display is much easier to read.

Slimmer, more appealing styling.

Keys, while a bit small, are indented which provides much better tactile feel and response than the older model.

I am very pleased with this upgrade, and recommend it to anyone would like to easily control a variety of components with an intuitive, easy to use, single remote control. Well worth the investment!

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