Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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68 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great remote, but the One is very good too, and the inability to upgrade is a major flaw, September 21, 2009
The Harmony 900 is VERY similar to the Harmony One, which is a terrific remote. If you don't need the RF capability, I would stick with the Harmony One - It is a much better value.
My Harmony experience: I started with the 880 and upgraded to the One, and now to the 900.
All of these remotes pass the babysitter test - that is, can a babysitter pick up the remote and watch tv. The RF capability (using radio frequency "RF" instead of line of sight infrared "IR") helps the 900 pass the babysitter test with flying colors.
PROS of the 900
1) The remote has a great screen and there are tons of icons available online to take advantage of it.
2) The ability to use RF means that you can set up your system so that the remote does not need to pointed anywhere near the components for them to work. This is especially useful where your "Watch TV" command includes several steps such as turning on a receiver, cable box and tv - miss one of those and you can become very frustrated. The RF prevents this. Three provided blasters (one large and two small) convert the RF signal to IR in your av cabinet. The 900 also can send IR and you can select which devices have signals sent over RF or IR. I have a plasma set on the wall and can't easily put an IR blaster nearby, so I have the plasma set to IR and all of my other components - in a nearby AV rack - set to RF. It works great.
3) All of the other pros you get from the 880 and One are also present in the 900 (except macros - see below).
4) The other obvious difference between the One and the 900 is that the 900 adds a row of four colored hard buttons to correspond to the A B C and D commands on some cable boxes and blue-ray players. To make room, the mute and previous channel buttons are a bit smaller.
5) The IR blasters are great and do NOT need to ever be removed from the cabinet to do updates (as you have to do with some other models). All updates are done on the remote over USB, and the remote then updates the blasters wirelessly.
CONS of the 900
1) By far, the largest con is the inability to simply upgrade from previous models. Upgrading from the 880 to the One took five minutes. You just have to remap a couple of buttons and everything else carries over. Upgrading from the One to the 900 requires you to start from scratch. It forces you to create an entirely new Harmony account. You have to reconfigure all of your devices, all of your activities, and all of your favorite channels. You have to re-teach any custom IR commands. This is fairly inexcusable. I have five devices and four activities. I've been using Harmony remotes for years and have really fine-tuned my set-up. It took me over three hours to get it all back in shape - and I'm probably still not there. So, this is a major flaw I would hope they can fix.
2) The remote can still do customized macros when starting or ending an activity, but you cannot do macros within an activity anymore. That means you cannot have the pause command also mute the sound and bring up the lights. This is not a big deal for me, since I never used macros on my older Harmony remotes, but some people seem to be quite bent out of shape over the removal of this feature. To be clear, you can still do whatever you want when starting or ending an activity.
3) The "slideshow" on the older remotes has been replaced with a sleep timer.
4) The stickers provided to affix the blaster and mini-blasters to your AV cabinet shelves are terrible. You will need to use better double-sided tape.
5) The 900 takes longer to switch between screens than the One or the 880 did. It is as if it is "thinking" about things for a second or two before they happen.
6) The left and right soft keys used to switch between screens are less sensitive than they were on the One, and you cannot adjust the screen touch sensitivity.
7) The 900 gives you the ability to add icons to the soft keys, but - unlike the favorite channels - you cannot use custom icons from the internet. This is a silly limitation and the number of available icons is very limited. In any event, this is still a step up from the One.
8) Favorite channels are still limited to four screens per activity. If you want to have more than that (and many people do) you need to add another watch TV activity. Each activity gets independent favorite channels. I wish this could be expanded. My remote is only using 31 MB of 62 MB of onboard memory, and I would love to have the ability to add many more channels to my favorites.
9) You no longer have the ability to adjust the brightness of the light on the charging cradle, but it isn't very bright and doesn't bother me. The One has a switch on the bottom of the cradle to adjust the brightness.
CONCLUSION
All in all, once configured, I really like the 900. However, I would never upgrade from the One to the 900 unless I really needed the RF functions. If you were to remove the RF function from the 900, I would think the One is a better remote and only costs half as much. That said, the RF function is a great addition and really makes it much easier for others to use. It easily passes the babysitter test. I'm giving it three stars because I think the One gives much better value, and the inability to easily upgrade really irked me. If the One did not exist, or if I had never owned a previous Harmony remote, I would give it 4 1/2 stars.
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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not unlike previous Harmony remote models, only better, September 22, 2009
BRIEF EVALUATION
The Harmony 900 can replace all infrared (IR) remotes used to control the various devices associated to an entertainment center. Once configured, its activity-centric interface effectively shields the user(s) from having to explicitly control individual devices, unless they want to. The Harmony will allow 'everyone', including the less technical members of a household to get the most off an entertainment center's capabilities without having to worry about switching the remote's 'modes' or remembering the correct I/O ports before watching a Blu-ray movie, watching TV or listening to the radio.
As compared to its immediate predecessor models (880, 890), the Harmony 900 offers a number of incremental but generally welcome improvements or changes
- Ergonomic shape, well-balanced body with sculpted buttons for a tactile feel.
- Surprisingly good, hi-res, full color touch screen that allows for up to 6, context defined 'soft' buttons.
- Included IR Blasters that make controlling devices behind walls or inside locked cabinets possible and improve remote's ease of use - no need to 'point' the remote.
- Better designed, wider charger base.
The new Harmony 900 is an elegant and efficient way to operate one's audio-visual equipment and it's should be a 'must have' for anyone who can can afford it. PS3 owners should be aware that Harmony's lack of Bluetooth support will require the purchase of another add-on.
PACKAGING AND PHYSICAL SETUP
The Harmony 900 comes in a well-partitioned box that keeps the various components well-protected during shipping and makes it relatively easy to open and access its contents.
The following are included:
- Remote's body
- Charging base
- Remote's rechargeable battery
- IR master blaster
- 2 Mini Blasters
- 2 Power Adapters (one for the charger and one for the IR blaster)
- 5-ft. USB cable
- System software on a DVD
- Multi-lingual poster-style manual
Putting it together is as easy as inserting the battery into the remote control - it's designed such that you can't do it wrong, attaching the power adapter wire to the charging stand and then performing the initial charge.
CONFIGURATION
An Internet-connected computer with a USB port will be needed to install the software and configure the remote. Once installed and an account is established, the software will guide the user, step by step through all the configuration/setup activities.
[To make setup quicker and easier, one should have the EXACT make and model number (like Sony KDL-70XBR7, not just Sony Bravia) for all the devices about to be registered or one will have to go through a time consuming process involving 'teaching' the Harmony what every button on the unrecognized device's remote does.]
Once all devices are registered and recognized, the software will suggest a series of 'activities' that it believes you should be able to perform with the registered devices. You can accept them all and then refine your requirements, remove some or add some of your own. For the basic setup to complete, Harmony will need to know which devices need to be on, which specific device is to be controlled when turning the volume up or down (TV or receiver) or changing the channel (cable box or TV) and which specific ports/channels are used (HDMI-1 or Satellite-IN)
After the basic setup is completed and tested, it's possible to further customize your activities. Typically, you will add 'favorite' channels to the touch screen. For reasons I can't understand, the only 'channel' icons Harmony carries are for a number of FOX outlets but Harmony-compatible icons for most known channels (other than C-SPAN) I could find at a site whose URL I posted as the first 'comment' made to this post (can't post URLs inside the review). Optionally, you can add some 'soft' buttons for each device if the remote does not have physical buttons for all the available functions.
It is also possible to customize the way your remote behaves: several color schemes are available, you can decide for how long the 900 will stay lit after a button is pressed, whether the 'favorite channels' or the 'controls' are displayed by default when a TV-related activity is selected, you can add custom commands as 'soft buttons' on the touch screen or change the default mapping of physical buttons to different commands.
Further fine tuning can be done to change the default buttons mapping for any registered device or even to establish the exact order in which the various components are turned on and off and, if needed, set specific delays between specific steps performed to start a particular 'activity'.
Even when there aren't any devices behind walls or inside cabinets, the Blasters can be used to enhance the user's experience. By placing these IR-generating devices (one big 'master' and two attached 'mini blasters') on the shelf/shelves or inside the cabinets you no longer need to worry about pointing 'at' whatever it is you want to operate because the Blasters communicate with the remote via radio (RF) which means no need to point and less severe distance restrictions. The Blaster use is an either-or proposition for any individual device. For example, Harmony allowed me to exempt the AV receiver from the Blaster treatment (it was not responding to Blaster commands reliably), meaning that everything but the AV receiver could be controlled through the Blaster while the receiver was getting 'traditional' IR commands from the remote.
While it's true that the initial setup can be completed in about one hour, I found that the more I use the Harmony the more I think of further refinements so it can take several setup refining sessions over several days before the configuration could be called 'stable'. Once that's accomplished, everything is set more or less on 'automatic pilot' and there's very little to worry and a lot to enjoy. Once used to the 'cycle', updating is easy: fire up the software, enter changes, connect the remote to the computer and get it updated.
THE EXPERIENCE
Anyone watching a Harmony at work for the first time should be impressed. I know that I was when I first used my Harmony 880 a year or so ago. It's almost like it's talking with the TV, the satellite receiver, the Blu-ray player, the AV receiver box. Devices turn themselves on or off as needed as you switch from one 'activity' to another, they reconfigure themselves, opening the proper input or output channels and the Harmony appears to conduct 2-way communication sessions with each one of them individually - probably not true since, as far as I know, IR controllers don't get feedback from the devices they control - if anyone knows otherwise, please correct me.
Once set up, the typical interaction with the remote is to select an 'activity' and then enjoy the show. The Harmony will turn off the devices not needed for the activity, turn on and properly set up those that must be on, set up the soft buttons on the touch screen and map the 'hard' buttons to various functions. To switch to a different activity, simply touch the 'activity' button, then select the desired activity from the touch screen and the Harmony will go through a similar cycle. To turn everything off, touch the 'off' button and everything is turned off unless the setup asked the Harmony to keep certain devices 'on' all the time - the satellite box, for example.
Whenever the Harmony makes a mistake or gets confused about the status of a particular device, pressing the Help button will place the Harmony in a troubleshooting mode. It will try to interactively fix the problem or, if the user knows exactly what to do, telling Harmony 'I know how to fix this' will give the user the opportunity to address the problem without assistance.
Besides 'activities', it is possible to command a specific device, independently. And, of course, the Harmony's own settings can be tweaked to some degree - and for minor, remote specific changes such as the color scheme, the setup can be performed on the remote directly - no need to connect it to a computer.
Unlike its immediate predecessors, the Harmony 900 designers opted for the 'groovy' look. Sculpted, well-defined buttons, instead of the smooth styling of the 880 and 890. Just about every button you would expect on a respectable remote is there, including the 4 'colored' buttons used with some satellite/cable boxes and Blu-ray players. Since Harmony 'knows' a lot about all the devices it works with - it loads data from a 200,000 electronic devices database - the functions usually map correctly to the expected Harmony button. In addition, the full color touch screen allows for 6 additional 'soft' buttons to be visible at any given time and, if more than 6 buttons are needed, it's possible to 'flip' page after page of more buttons - there are 'touch' page-flipping buttons to the right and left of the touch screen. In our case, we used 4 pages worth of 'favorite channels' so we have 'my' page, a movies channels page, the kids page and Ms. D's page - most convenient.
The remote lights up whenever a button or the screen are pressed or when the remote is moved, shaken or rattled (gently, hopefully). It would stay lit for up to 30 seconds (configurable) if nothing else is done to it, waiting for additional commands. Clearly, the shape was scientifically determined to fit the average human hand as comfortably as possible - it feels well balanced and comfortable to hold and it's easy to pick up from a table or from your armchair's arm. When not in use, the preferred resting place should be the...
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16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Harmony 900, August 29, 2009
As a long time fan of the Harmony remote series, particularly the Harmony One, I was excited to hear that Logitech had introduced the radio frequency (RF) version of this incredible universal advanced remote. This 900 builds upon the comfortable shape and great key layout design of the Harmony One. It also has an even more rich look and feel. It looks great on my coffee table, on or off the charging base! The additional 4 color buttons map perfectly to my set DirecTV receiver's and Blu-Ray player's additional features.
This is my 3rd Harmony remote purchase and I am still amazed at how simple the one touch Activity (Watch TV, Watch DVD, etc) approach makes controlling my system. My wife and kids can control my entire setup without having to call for help. One touch simplicity and the remote gets it done. The OEM remotes from my 6 components never come out of the drawer.
Like all Harmony's, the Web programming and USB connection make setup a breeze (Harmony had the remote codes for each of my components in their database). The Harmony 900 takes simple setup a step further by making the final remote and extender configurations all done on the touch screen. Very intuitive and trouble free.
The Harmony 900 is everything I hoped it would be and more and has no equal. If you have remote or hidden equipment, or just want the convenience of not having to `point' the remote every time you enter a command, the Harmony 900 is your ultimate solution!
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