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I purchased the Harmony One to replace 4 other remotes that controlled my uVerse box, Samsung DVD, Samsung TV and media PC. I was particularly interested in the ability to program "Activities," that would chain remote IR commands together in the correct sequence to turn on the correct devices, connect each to the correct input, change to the correct channel, and so on.
Primarily, I bought the Harmony One to satisfy my wife, who could never figure out how to get the right devices turned on and connected to the right inputs. Particularly confusing to her was the idea that the TV had multiple inputs, and each remote was capable of controlling multiple devices. Depending on who used the TV and remotes last, each device was always left in a non-default mode that she couldn't recognize and re-configure to do what she wanted. Basically, she demanded a one-button solution that allowed her to do exactly what she wanted to do. And she threatened to stop making dinner until I provided that solution.
So, I knew I needed to program the Harmony One for these activities:
1) Watch Live TV,
2) Watch Recorded TV
3) Watch a DVD
4) Start Pandora Music that streams through the Samsung DVD
5) Start Netflix that streams through the Samsung DVD
6) Switch to the Media PC
7) Always start live TV on the Turner Classic Movie channel, her favorite.
8) Make it easy for her to switch to the cooking and history channels, her secondary favorites.
I succeeded in programming the Harmony One in all these tasks, but only after a great deal of trial and error. Challenges I encountered were primarily in choosing the correct time delays between commands, choosing the correct command, and dealing with the limitations of commands available for each individual device. For example, the Samsung TV has separate commands for TV-ON and TV-OFF. That means you can program the Harmony One to send multiple TV-ON commands if the TV seems slow to respond. On the other hand, the Samsung DVD has a single Power command that toggles the DVD player ON if it's currently OFF, or OFF if it's currently ON. This means that sometimes the DVD player power status gets out of synchronization with the TV, and when the Harmony sends power signals to both the TV and DVD, the DVD may be off when the TV is on, or vice-versa, until you manually turn off the DVD to match the TV. I spent a lot of trial-and-error time experimenting with time delays between commands before I finally got each activity to be reliable.
By the way, you CANNOT program the Harmony One until it is fully charged. Without a fully charged battery, it will never complete the update process. This problem has been mentioned in several reviews, and I encountered it when I first received the Harmony and tried to program it immediately after opening the box. Resign yourself to charging the Harmony for at least 6 hours before attempting to program it. Although the Harmony is connected to a USB port during the programming process, the USB port does not charge the Harmony, so you must leave the Harmony laying in it's charging cradle for at least 6 hours before you attempt to program it.
The Harmony One is totally dependent on using an internet connection to do the programming. Since there will be a lot of trial-and-error testing if you are programming Activities, it will be convenient for you to have a computer nearby with Internet access.
Having given you all those warnings about programming "Activities", I do want to say that when I connected the Harmony to the Logitech website and entered the list of all my AV devices (TV, DVD and uVerse box), those device configurations were downloaded to my Harmony One and it worked fine as a single universal replacement for each remote. The Harmony allows you to cycle through choices to control each device, so when you choose DVD the Harmony remote will properly control the DVD, and the same is true for the TV and the uVerse box. Of course, the Harmony cannot emulate a computer mouse and keyboard, so I did not get full control of the media PC. But I can use the Harmony to make sure the TV is pointed to the Media PC source when I'm using that. If all you need is a universal remote replacement for all your existing remotes, there are products cheaper than the Harmony One that fill that function. The real power of the Harmony One comes from it's ability to be programmed to perform user-defined "Activities" that normally require issuing a series of commands from several remotes to get to the function you desire.
A few other miscellaneous points:
Getting the "Activities" to work often entails inserting some long time delays into the command string. For instance, starting my "Play Pandora Music" activity requires 40 seconds to begin the activity. During those 40 seconds, the Harmony remote must remain CONTINUALLY pointed at the DVD player and the TV. If you get distracted and swing the remote around or lay it down where the IR signal is blocked, the Activity will not start correctly.
The touch screen and the buttons on the Harmony are fairly sensitive, easy to press. If you like to fondle your remote while watching TV, you may find yourself inadvertently pushing buttons and changing channels when you didn't mean to. I partially compensated for this by leaving the number buttons unprogrammed or unassigned when in the "Watch DVD" or "Watch Recorded TV" activities - that way, inadvertently pressing a number button has no effect while watching a recording.
The layout of the buttons on the Harmony One are different from all the other remotes I've owned. The positions of the volume/channel controls, and the playback controls, are reversed from anything I've seen in the past. You will get used to it, but it's annoying at first.
If you are going to change your current Activity, I found it best to use the Harmony power button to turn everything off, confirm everything is really off, and then choose the new activity. I also programmed a string of "power down" commands that return the TV to a default input, and return the uVerse box to the TCM channel, before turning off both devices. That's my "Default" setting. That way, the wife can manually turn on the TV and uVerse box and the TV will come on to the channel she likes best, without using the remotes at all. I suspect that regardless of which activity you choose next, it's best to have all devices starting their individual power up sequence from a known default condition.
The Harmony One can be programmed to display on it's touch screen a pictorial list of favorite channels. 6 channels per screen, multiple screens. That makes it easy for the wife to find her favorite channels, because when she chooses the "Watch Live TV" activity, all her favorite channels are displayed and are just a finger touch away. No need for her to memorize 4 digit channel numbers for each or to scroll through all channels to find the ones she wants. However, the channel icons are not provided by Logitech. You will need to Google for "Harmony One icons" in order to find the user generated websites that provide the icons, such as iconharmonyDOTcom.
The "Activity" command strings and your device configurations are all stored on the Logitech website. If your Harmony One locks up or quits working, like mine did once, you should be able to connect to the Harmony website and re-download the configuration for your Harmony. As always, make sure the Harmony is fully recharged before you attempt to download the configuration. If the dog chews up your Harmony One, you can buy a new one and download all the configuration files from the old one to get it up and running quickly.
The Harmony One has a built in troubleshooting function which you can invoke if your Activity does not perform as expected. I found that it did little more than ask if the correct devices were turned on, and if not it would turn them on. However, if your Activity requires that the uVerse box should be turned on AND then tuned to channel 1490, the troubleshooter would not ask if the tuner was pointed at the correct channel. Eventually, I disabled the troubleshooter because it rarely solved the problem completely. It needs to step through every line of the command string and ask if that command was executed - it does not do this.
The battery life of the Harmony One is quite short, maybe 8 hours, even if sitting idle on your coffee table. So if you don't put it back in the charging cradle at the end of each day, it will not function on the next day until it is recharged. Leave it discharged for a few days and you will probably have to reconnect it to the programming website and download the configuration all over again.
The infrared signals from the remote are apparently emitted in a fairly narrow cone, and they may need to shine on several devices that are a few feet apart. So you do need to step back at least 6 feet from your AV center in order to make sure that both the TV and the DVD player are receiving the infrared signal. Step back at least 6 feet and point the remote somewhere half way between the several devices you are trying to control during start up.
Finally, I'm reproducing below the string of commands that turns on my "Watch Recorded TV" activity, just so you can get an idea of a typical "Activity" command string. You'll note two commands are duplicated, just to make sure thery are recognized. And the pauses add up to about 10 seconds if you include some default pauses not shown here.
. . . Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Status / Actions
Samsung Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . Samsung Monitor is on
Motorola Tuner/Recorder STB . . . Motorola Tuner/Recorder STB is on
Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . All other devices are off
Samsung Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . Samsung Monitor is set to "Component1"
Samsung Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . "PowerOn" command is sent to the Samsung Monitor
Samsung Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . The remote pauses for 5000 milliseconds
Samsung Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . The remote pauses for 2000 milliseconds
Samsung Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . "InputComponent1" command is sent to the Samsung Monitor
Motorola Tuner/Recorder STB . . . The remote pauses for 500 milliseconds
Motorola Tuner/Recorder STB . . . "RecordedTV" command is sent to the Motorola Tuner/Recorder STB
Motorola Tuner/Recorder STB . . . The remote pauses for 1000 milliseconds
Motorola Tuner/Recorder STB . . . "DirectionRight" command is sent to the Motorola Tuner/Recorder STB
Before the devices are turned off, leaving the Generic Activity does the following:
. . . Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Action
Samsung Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . "InputComponent1" command is sent to the Samsung Monitor
Motorola Tuner/Recorder STB . . . . The remote pauses for 200 milliseconds
Motorola Tuner/Recorder STB . . . . Motorola Tuner/Recorder STB is set to "Channel "
====================
Good luck with your Harmony One! I spent almost 6 hours programming my "Activities," as I kept trying alternate commands, duplicate commands, orders of commands, and different pause lengths. Activities that worked one day would stop working the next day, and I found I had to go back and increase the length of various pauses or change to order of commands before I could get it to work consistently.
My wife is pleased, and she makes dinner for me again.
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I bought this to replace my existing Logitech controller which was overdue after about 6 years of use. There are some good things about this one - I like the touch screen - but in general the functionality is unchanged from the older model. It's doing the job so if it lasts as long as the old one did, I'll be happy.One point - in some cases it would be nice to be able to ASSIGN a function to a non-touchscreen format. Example - when using my cable box, I typically use the GUIDE + FAVORITES function to flip through what is on the channels while still watching an existing program. Since the FAVORITES function is only on the touchscreen, I have to be very careful to touch the right place while watching the screen. It would be great if I could assign this to some place on the unit that provided a tactile feedback. This is a minor point, and I have gotten used to it, but I occasionally still hit the wrong button on the touch screen area while trying to do this type of maneuver.========================UPDATE on 5/26/13See my pic attached to the item listing. This is what happens after a drop from a 22 inch table. Not very acceptable in my opinion! I should have heeded the comments of others who had similar issues. I will be talking to Logitech about warranty coverage, but based on other comments, my hopes are not high. I had another similar Logitech remote for 6 years and it survived two small kids and multiple drops. I guess times and quality have changed. I don't expect a remote to be indestructible, but I DO expect it to survive a 22" drop! I would probably expect it to survive a 4' or maybe even 5' drop.The screen DID NOT crack, and all functions still work, but you can only see the lower third of the LCD so any button on the upper two thirds is not displayed. So, effectively, it becomes useless. I'll be looking for another product. Willing to chance another Logitech because I was so happy with the first one, but maybe that will depend on how customer support handles my warranty claim. I will post back here when I know more.
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 5, 2011
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 9, 2012
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One remote to rule them all - almost
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Great remote but keep it away from the toddler.
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