[valve90210]

Hi All

Yesterday my Harmony 555 died on me, the LCD screen is no longer displaying anything which makes it pretty much impossible to use.

I emailed Logitech customer services to see if they would help (it is out of warranty).

They replied today saying that they could offer me a 50% off voucher to spend on their site, however, their current crop of Harmony remotes is very disappointing!

There is no direct replacement for the 555 I have been using. The remotes in a similar price range are only capable of replacing 5 remote controls, which is sadly not enough for my system setup. I don’t have the most complex setup but need rather more than 5 devices to be controlled.

My setup consists of:

TV
PVR
Blu-ray player
CD Player
Amp
X10 light controller
Media PC
Media Streamer
Xbox 360
Video Source switcher

This means I have to look to the Harmony One +, the 900 or the 1100 all of which are hugely above the price range of the 555.

The cheapest, the Harmony One + (nearly 2 ½ times the price paid for my 555!) is hugely flawed in that it doesn’t have hard colour buttons as used by pretty much every TV service in the UK since Ceefax appeared in 1976…and continue to be used by digital services, Virgin Media, Sky and Freeview all require use of these buttons! The lack of these buttons is both bewildering and pretty much renders the remote control useless – as can be seen mentioned many times in reviews, even those on the Logitech website – and a huge step down from the 555 (as declared by reviews on the site...).

The 900 does have the coloured buttons but at £219 it really is far too expensive for me at nearly 4 times the price of my 555, a price which I really can’t justify. Also by all accounts it's very different to programme and is much more annoying to get working right.

The 1100, pretty obviously is also way out of my price range.

So, now I have a quandry, what do I do, should I buy the 600 and dig my old remote controls out of the loft so I can control all my devices, do I buy a hugely compromised One+ and hope that the reviews, saying the lack of coloured buttons and fragile build quality making it poor, are wrong...

Alternatively do I just buy the most expensive thing I can find on their site, get it half price then sell it on and use the profit to buy some other remote...not that there are many about that are as nice to use as the harmonys...

What would you do?

[logiciel]

Get the One - forget the + sign.
The colour commands are on large coloured discs on the touch screen and are perfectly good there.
Many other commands are on it, and any can be, including excellent Favourite Channel icons.
If you really don't like them there you just customise them to a conveniently placed group of hard buttons.
Most people think that having them on the screen is an advantage, rather than making the One "hugely flawed" or "a huge step down", and making it more useful rather than useless.
It certainly doesn't have a fragile build quality, quite the reverse - it's much better than the 500s.
Both the 900 and 1100 are worth having only if you need their Extenders for use out of line of sight.
Again the reports of different and difficult programming are completely wrong.
Whoever wrote all that stuff must have been having a bad day.

[valve90210]

Originally Posted by logiciel

Get the One - forget the + sign.

IS there any difference between the One and the One+? Sadly if I were to get one it would have to be the One+ as that's all they have listed on the Logitech site.

Originally Posted by logiciel

The colour commands are on large coloured discs on the touch screen and are perfectly good there.
Many other commands are on it, and any can be, including excellent Favourite Channel icons.
If you really don't like them there you just customise them to a conveniently placed group of hard buttons.

I guess that is an ok workaround but it is no great substitute for having actual coloured buttons, as it will require remember which buttons are which...fine for me...my girlfriend...hmm not so sure...

Originally Posted by logiciel

Most people think that having them on the screen is an advantage, rather than making the One "hugely flawed" or "a huge step down", and making it more useful rather than useless.

Without wanting to sound rude, and I really don't want to be rude but in what way is having them on a touch screen an advantage?

Below are some quote from reviews on the Logitech website...

A great item let down by two major design errors
...However my first Major problem NO coloured quick buttons the green/blue/red/yellow seemed so unimportant till I did not have them. My wife hated not having them which then caused me earache! It was so easy to push the wrong button and end up on the wrong page and was just plain irritating...

No Colour Keys
Really sad mistake to exclude the 4 colour keys - makes a good (if expensive) remote fairly useless. Mine sits unused and replaced by a much cheaper Harmony 600. £130 wasted I'm afraid.

I do agree that for SKY box control it would help to have the red/yellow/green/blue buttons on the main body and not on the screen.

Absolutely terrible
I got this to replace a (6 year old?) Harmony 885 that had a faulty Off button.
First thing I noticed was no Reg/Green/Yellow/Blue buttons on the device. A bit of a pain for using Sky....
...Fortunately it does show the Red/Green/Yellow/Blue buttons on the touch screen. But the buttons are all blue, with the name of the colours as text. This is on a device where one of the selling points is a colour touch screen...
My advice would be to keep well away from this device.

I'm not saying I believe these to be the gospel truth but to see so many bad comments in only such a small amount of reviews (16) does concern me!

Originally Posted by logiciel

It certainly doesn't have a fragile build quality, quite the reverse - it's much better than the 500s.

Again, more quotes from the reviews on the Logitech website, this time regarding the build quality...

Found touch screen tricky to use at times as I have big fingers and having up to 8 touch buttons on a small screen often resulted in pressing the wrong button, could have done with a tangible grid on the outer screen. Remote looks good but is slippery and after a recent drop, the screen has stopped working, rendering the remote useless. I would buy a Logitech remote again, but not one with a touch screen.

This remote works well as a Harmony remote of this price should. However, the LCD touch screen means the battery performance is very low and it really needs to live in its cradle when not in use.
The whole remote is rather slippery and has to be picked up to be used. Don't try to even press a button while it lies on the table, it will slide away and inevitably fall off the table.
The LCD is also prone to breakage as it is glass. A rather normal (for a remote) fall can break the internal LCD rendering the remote absolutely useless. If you can't see your activities, you can use the touch screen! Worst design concept for a remote. Rather choose a less expensive non-touch LCD remote. This touch screen really is a gimmick and provides no better performance or user interaction. In fact, you generally end up touching the wrong thing due to your angle of viewing compared to the inset LCD.
Technical Expertise: Tech Savvy
I've used this product: More than a year

...then we discovered its Achilles heel! We dropped it! The screen cracked ! Its OK I thought this thing cost over £100 I must be able to get it fixed...nope..OK i can fix it myself I just need to buy a screen...nope..I could not even find a replacement screen on EBay! It is a sealed unit and the screen is bloody soldered on! Not Happy! I just don't understand why Logitech would make a product designed to be used everyday and inevitably end down the side of sofas get dropped and being used as a hammer by the kids then make it so flimsy.

Again I'm not saying these are definitive but it does concern me that if the remote is a bit flimsy, and the touch screen is prone to breaking then it could very quickly be rendered useless! I think I need to find one ot have a feel of to see for myself what the build quality is like.

Originally Posted by logiciel

Again the reports of different and difficult programming are completely wrong.
Whoever wrote all that stuff must have been having a bad day.

I've read something about not being able to programme key sequences etc? These are very handy when you use X10 to control lights.

Another two quotes from the Logitech website which concerned me greatly as they both come from former 555 owners...

Had the excellent 555 for some years but some buttons started to fail. Upgraded to the One and was frustrated. OK I knew setup would take time so I wasn't too concerned. My main concern is the touchscreen. I appreciate you need a screen to get more options but why a touchscreen when you can have physical button adjacent to each option? One handed operation is much easier with real buttons than trying to touch the right screen area without brushing the wrong one. The final straw came when passing the remote to my daughter (12 years) who caught the yellow touchscreen button and deleted an unwatched programme from the Sky+ planner. Bring back the hard colour keys and I could live with the over-hyped touch screen. And if you think I should go the next higher model 900 with the colour buttons, just remember that it won't allow you to programme key sequences like the One. What sort of improvemnet programme is this from Logitech? Pity you can't get the 555 any more.

Massive backward step!!

Have been an owner of a Harmony 555 for over five years - it was fantastic until the volume keys stopped functioning correctly. 555 no longer sold so opted to purchase a harmony 1+, considerably more money then the 555 was and what a backward step.
The remote needs to be shaken quite violently to wake it up, new ball bearing design apparently, the 555 used to wake up and be ready to use instantly.
Coloured buttons have disappeared from remote keys onto screen, screen not accessible with one hand unless you pick it up, shake it to awaken and put down to then use screen. 555 all the keys were where you needed them, SKY must be owned by a massive percentage of Harmony owners yet they have made it less accesible.
Overall for a more premium product in terms of price it is a backwards step in my opinion in terms of design and usability.
Please bring back the 555!!

If I get a chance over the weekend, I'll see if I can find anywhere near me that stocks the One so I can get a feel for it.

Do you know if there are any new Harmonys on the horizon which it might be worth holding our for?

[hot-fuzz]

Im in the sme boat (almost)

My 885 died, and when i say died, it was put in a sink of water by my son !!
So now looking at a new one there isnt anything that can touch it.
So much so im looking at getting another 885.

The Red, blue, green and yellow buttons need to be hard wired onto the remote, i dont think i woudl be able to get used to them elsewhere.
Why have they been takne out on most remotes?

[valve90210]

I assume the coloured buttons have not so much been removed as have not been added to a UK/Europe specific version of the remote, as iirc most countries don't use them (?)

[logiciel]

Thanks for those quotations valve92010.
Some are surprising and most of them give very different experiences from mine with three Ones over several years.
The only difference with the + version is that it can be used with the new setup system that was originally devised for the cheap and nasty 300 model, but that's a bad thing not a good one, and it still works with the normal system, so that's why it doesn't matter if it's the only version that's currently being sold.
Remembering which hard buttons the colour commands are Customised to is very simple, and you could always put a dab of paint on them if it wasn't! I used the spare Up/Down toggle for Green/Yellow and replaced the functions of the two on either side of it for Red and Blue. That makes a convenient grouping right next to the direction and OK buttons that you often need with them. I find the coloured buttons on the 900 too small in comparison, and less convenient for being in a row.
The reason why people consider the touch screen an advantage is that it is more modern technology, more like the screens that they're used to for doing everything on mobile phones and similar devices.
One quotation says "the buttons are all blue, with the name of the colours as text". That's totally false - they're large circular icons of the correct colours, and with or without the names in text, at your choice.
The One's main body IS of glossy material but the back is made specifically with a different material that's intended specifically to allow for a firm grip.
All of my three have been dropped many times and haven't incurred any damage at all.
They are available for use as soon as you pick them up - no "shaking" is required!
One quotation about the screen refers to 8 buttons. There are actually six locations on each screen, and they are quite large enough to make it easy to touch the one you want.
Some Harmonys, including the One, allow for up to five commands to be sent at the press of one button. The 900 does not do that, but it is not a feature that is used much, and it has other ways of achieving the same objective.
Apparently there is an impending new model, that has a full keyboard on the back, something that seems to me to be both expensive and impractical.

That's correct about the colour commands being used mainly in the UK and therefore not being included on many universal remotes that are meant for sale world-wide.

[valve90210]

I'm gonna see if I can get my hands on a One this weekend and if it feels like it's well built I think I'll get myself one and see if I can get on with it.

[logiciel]

There are an awful lot of people who get on very well with it.

[hot-fuzz]

Theres also an awful lot of people that like One Direction. Doesnt make them good
LOL.

For me the One does look great, but im far too used to the hard wired coloured buttons and think if i was spending out that much id want it to be perfect, not "make do".

Looking at the Harmony 700.

[logiciel]

Never heard of it, or them.

[chef_uk]

Same boat here too. My 885 is becoming harder and harder to work properly (far too many falls) so am looking around at another but i see too many to decide what i want

I like the look of the One's but the touchscreen puts me off as i fear in a house with 3 kids that are constantly knocking the remote, it will break much sooner than a non LCD remote so what's the best of the rest?

[valve90210]

I managed to get my hands on a One at the weekend, and have to say the build quality did feel good, I think I'm gonna go for it and see if I can get used to the touch screen etc.

[logiciel]

Go for it.

Don't you have a touch-screen phone or other device that would have got you used to the idea?

[valve90210]

yeah, I've got a touchscreen phone which is fine but when I'm using it I'm doing things on my phone so looking at it is fine, when I'm using the remote, 95% of the time I'm looking at the tv which makes touchscreen a bit of a nuisance but I'll probably get used to it.

I'm quite looking forward to setting up a new remote, the great thing with the harmonys is that they are so straight forward to get working nicely you don't have to spend ages tinkering like I used to with my Pronto...but there are times when it'd be nice to have something to need to tinker with...

[logiciel]

Yes, that's the problem with those Harmonys, whether to look at the TV's screen, or theirs.
Good to hear you find them so - or too - straightforward to set up, as others claim they're not.

[valve90210]

I'm sure I'll get used to it fairly well.

I found setting up my 555 very simple indeed, It helps to have a good knowledge of exactly how your system is set up, all your devices, what inputs, what outputs, etc etc. but I have to say it took about 30 mins to set up my last remote and only needed a few tweaks here and there.

[logiciel]

Good to hear that specific confirmation of the half-hour setting up time.
It's even easier when you change from one model to another of course.

[valve90210]

I've already decided that I'm going to start from scratch with the new remote, so will be able to time how long it takes me...though my 5 month old boy might delay things a little...

My plan is to attempt to setup my 555 with a simple seetup for my bedroom where there is only a tv, pver and xbox, as I should be able to control those without needing to use the (now dead) screen except for selecting activities...of which there will be only 2. I intend to have watch tv on the left 2 buttons and watch xbox on the right two...

[logiciel]

[reevesy]

went from a 555 to a one.....been happy with it and though they more or less do the same thing remote wise ...one of the things i found quiet useful was being able to exit 'current activity' and fiddle about in a 'devices' menu..then flick back to 'current activity'
...something you could'nt do as easily with a 555

colour touch screen is nice too

[qwakuk]

Originally Posted by reevesy

went from a 555 to a one.....been happy with it and though they more or less do the same thing remote wise ...one of the things i found quiet useful was being able to exit 'current activity' and fiddle about in a 'devices' menu..then flick back to 'current activity'
...something you could'nt do as easily with a 555

colour touch screen is nice too

Agreed very useful feature

I came from an 885 and it was a pleasant "extra" feature

[logiciel]

If anyone has to "exit 'current activity' and fiddle about in a 'devices' menu..then flick back to 'current activity' their activities are not set up properly - all the commands you're ever likely to need while the activity is selected should be available within it.
The device testing area of the remote is equally accessible on all models afaik.

[reevesy]

well i know what you're saying but sometimes after many hours of setting up various activities sometimes not every single thing gets covered

...probably just me but after having a couple of harmonies for a few years now i've never got to stage where i can feel confident to put all my remotes away in a box never to be used again

....something always seems to crop up now and again


cheers

[logiciel]

Yes, it can take time to get things just the way you want them.
Getting all the commands into each activity is no problem though - most are there already and you just go through the dropdown lists and add any that got through the automatic net.

[valve90210]

Just set up my new Harmony One and I have to say I'm pretty happy with it. As ever it was nice and simple to setup, took approx 45 minutes, and a lot of that was because I set up a couple of sequences for my light controller, and had to repeat this on all of my individual activities so I have direct and simple control of my lights no matter what I'm doing.

Originally Posted by reevesy

...one of the things i found quiet useful was being able to exit 'current activity' and fiddle about in a 'devices' menu..then flick back to 'current activity'
...something you could'nt do as easily with a 555

Yes you could... Just press the devices button, which took you to a list of devices on the screen, scroll through to select the device you wanted and you got to the commands for the device.

Once you'd done what you wanted, simply press device twice and you were back to the activity.

[logiciel]

Originally Posted by logiciel

The device testing area of the remote is equally accessible on all models afaik.

[ozbrit]

I sympathise with the OP. Being the owner of a 525 for a couple of years which controls six devices, I've often thought how nice it'd be to control eight or even ten devices. These are such desirable gizmos and after years of struggling with basic learning remotes, where they claim to control eight or ten devices, find they only have my TV in the custom codes and then they run out of memory long before you've finished teaching it your other devices. I'd like to save the commands of another couple of remotes which I use in other parts of the house, just in case those remotes should die.

I like the Harmony 700, it looks very much like the 300i the missus uses but with more facial buttons, I prefer that to having to scroll down additional commands in the window - though that configurable window does have it's place as well. The 700 is about the right price for me, but again it can only handle six devices.

No matter how good a remote control is imo it doesn't warrant spending ~ £100. I also don't want clutter around the house by way of a charging dock or similar. A couple of re-chargable AA's would be ideal or even AAA's as the 525 uses.

Surely it wouldn't need a completely new design to create such a beast, the same case as the 650 or 700 would do it for me.

[logiciel]

Originally Posted by ozbrit

525....which controls six devices. I've often thought how nice it'd be to control eight or even ten devices

The 525 takes up to 15 devices, so your wish has been granted to excess, all the time that you've had it.
Since its time it's become one of Logitech's oddities that the more different types of devices come on to the market the more they've restricted the number that their remotes can handle.

[ozbrit]

Originally Posted by logiciel

The 525 takes up to 15 devices, so your wish has been granted to excess, all the time that you've had it.
Since its time it's become one of Logitech's oddities that the more different types of devices come on to the market the more they've restricted the number that their remotes can handle.

That's interesting, in the bubble pack was a setup ROM, which I installed on my computers. I installed six devices and then there seemed to be no further space on the software/portal for further devices.

Last week I was reading that I could add further commands to my 525 for my Onkyo receiver if I load up my 525 with the controls from the remote control of a different model Onkyo receiver. On adding another device and loading the 525 with it's associated commands, I noticed that my Satelite box had been dropped from the device list on both the my online portal and on the device itself. I assumed by this that I'd hit the max number of devices possible. I did swear somewhat because that messed up some of my activities as well. This involved me in an hour or two salvage operation. Surprisingly when I returned the satelite box to the device line-up some but not all of my personal settings came back - presumably from the online backup or something.

All I was attempting to do was save the other receivers commands as the seventh device on my 525, then teach a couple of command buttons to my wifes 300i, then merge these with my receivers commands for my receiver by way of learning them.

Not really rocket science but something went wrong when I attempted to add that 7th device? Any suggestions as to what went wrong?

Stop press: I've managed to add a seventh device, a DVD recorder I have. I now wonder if the problem was caused by adding a second Onkyo receiver and as I already have one of those (different model) in the devices, it may have caused some type of conflict.

[logiciel]

Onkyo devices all have their separate command sets in the Harmony database, so you don't need to set up as substitutes models that you don't have, and you can have as many of them as you like in your account.
The 525 definitely takes 15 devices, and as you're having problems getting yours to do so there's clearly a fault that Logitech support will readily fix for you.