	Electronics

Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote with Color Touchscreen

Zoom

Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote with Color Touchscreen

(1039 customer reviews)

List Price:	$249.99
Our Price:	$149.99
You Save:	$100.00 (40%)
Shipping:	This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
*Shipping:

SKU:

In Stock

Availability: Usually ships in 1 business days

Note: Item may be sold and shipped by another company. Learn more.

Features

Easy Internet-based setup and live customer support
Dedicated on-screen activity buttons
Color LCD touch screen
Contoured backlit buttons
Can learn IR codes from existing remote controls

Description

The color touch screen and sculpted buttons, organized into logical zones with backlighting, give you easy, one-touch access to your home entertainment – even in the dark. Just one press and you're watching a DVD or your favorite TV channel. The ergonomic design fits comfortably in your hand, and because it's rechargeable, you won't need to worry about buying new batteries. With support for more than 5,000 brands, you can control home entertainment devices that you own today or will buy tomorrow. Our online software guides you through setup, and our live customer support team is available if you need help.

Product Details

Product Length:	5.38 inches
Product Width:	2.22 inches
Product Height:	10.22 inches
Product Weight:	1.41 pounds
Package Length:	10.4 inches
Package Width:	5.6 inches
Package Height:	2.5 inches
Package Weight:	1.4 pounds
Average Customer Rating:	based on 1039 reviews

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review: 4.0

( 1039 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

122 of 126 found the following review helpful:

Incredible remote with a major problem Nov 20, 2010 By W. Stewart "Billbo1970"
I absolutely LOVED this remote when I first got it over a year ago for $250. No more calls at work from my wife, asking me how to fix the snowy TV!

Unfortunately, after about 13 months it wouldn't charge the battery anymore. I assumed it was simply the battery & it needed to be replaced. When I popped open the cover, the battery was so tightly jammed in there, I had to use a butter knife to pry it out. Once removed, I saw that the battery had swollen. A quick search on the internet showed that this was a common problem with this battery & the cause of my non-charging issue. OK, so I ordered a new battery (not a generic, the real deal). It came & I replaced the battery. All was fine with the world for about 3 months. Then the remote stopped charging the battery again. Checked the battery, it looked fine... no swelling at all. Ordered yet another battery, assuming it was a non-visible issue with the battery. New one came & it won't charge either, right off the bat!

Now I'm furious. A $250 remote that now won't charge it's battery. Plus $60 in replacement batteries for the thing. I expect MUCH better longevity than that on a device this expensive. Logitech will do nothing for me since it's beyond the warranty period. An internet search shows that this is a very common problem with this remote. I don't know if the swollen battery caused some kind of electrical damage to the remote, or if prying it out with the knife (even though i was VERY careful) damaged something, or if something just died all on it's own, but it's very discouraging & frustrating.

Currently I charge the batteries seperately (outside of the remote) and swap them out of the remote weekly. It's kind of annoying, but other than that it still works flawlessly. I LOVE this remote & am even tempted to get another one (since I have 2 new batteries & it's now nearly $100 cheaper), but my disgust in the longevity is preventing me to do so and I'm not entirely convinced the battery issue has ever been resolved by logitech.

50 of 51 found the following review helpful:

Brilliantly functional Nov 28, 2009 By MartinP "MartinP"
I have owned one of the first generation universal remotes for years. However, it soon turned out that it wasn't able to actually take over all the functions of the original remotes and soon enough it was just one of the five or six remotes littering my couch. Frustrated over this situation I bought the Logitech Harmony One, and it solved my problem. Brilliantly so. Not only can it handle all functionality of even obscure brand devices (it knew my Peekton DVD player and my cable company's digital decoder), but programming it is as simple as can be. No more cumbersome, button by button transfers by pointing your old remote at the new one. Simply install the software, enter your devices with their model numbers, link the remote to your PC via USB, download the settings to it, and you're done.

However, the true brilliance of this remote is not in the easy setup and its truly universal applicability, but in the fact that it doesn't treat your devices as a random collection of separately operating electronics, but as an integrated system. This is done through the programming of `activities'. The setup through the software is, again, dead simple. Once done, you can select your activity on the touch screen, and the Logitech does the rest. For example, if I want to watch a DVD I no longer have to switch on my TV, my DVD player and my amp successively. I just hit `Watch a DVD' and the remote switches on all the devices I need, and also switches my amp and TV to the right input channels. It switches off all other devices (unless there are machines you always want to keep running, you can tell it that too). So not only can you throw out all your old remotes, the Harmony performs the same operations faster and without confusion.

All this ease of use is packed into a sensible, stick-type remote that has some touchscreen functionality, but thankfully didn't dispense with ordinary push buttons (the more I encounter touchscreens, the more I feel they rarely add true functional benefits but more often than not remain stuck on the level of a tempting looking gimmick). The Harmony is motion sensitive, which means it springs into action when you pick it up. When not in use you can leave it in the docking station - no batteries are needed. A five star invention if ever there was one.

71 of 76 found the following review helpful:

Excellent Product + Fragile LCD = Caveat Emptor Oct 17, 2011 By vcm773
I purchased this about 10 months ago. While some reviewers state the product didnt work or it was tedious to operate, I had zero problems with set up, management and every day use. I loved it. I was able to get rid of four remotes and I had easy access to everything in a single, easy to operate remote. Blue Ray, TV, Cable STB, Music Server, and Receiver all bending to my will. I marvelled at the thing and kicked myself for not getting one sooner. Early adopter I am not.

However recently the LCD panel, which is activated by touch, suddenly failed. The correct image was there but there was a black, leaf shaped artifact covering about a third of the display and the colors behind faded making it nearly impossible to read. No problem, it is less than a year and still under warrany so i should be fine, right?

The immediate reply from Logitech support was an indication. In the email they send telling you they have your inquiry and they will respond soon, they go to the trouble of saying that they will not warranty any faults due to physical damage. I thought it was odd to make a disclaimer and i already felt they were going to shaft me. I pressed on because I took care of the remote and didn't damage it. I have it in my basement man-cave. I only watch TV there a couple of times per week. I don't mess with it. I don't have kids that would play with it. Just normal use.

Their reply stated it was caused by physical damage by me and they wouldnt replace it. They offered me a discount of 50% to buy a replacement instead. I thought the answer was telling. Sure it's generous but it felt like a copout. I expect this happens often and i bet most people take them up on it. However I wasn't satisfied so I wrote back. They responded quickly and politely and asked me to send more pictures, which i did. Alas they responded with the same result.

It is a great working product but I am very disappointed to pay that kind of money for a remote and have it fail under normal use. I wouldnt mind paying the money to replace it if I knew I was at fault. But if I did break it, then you have to really treat this with care if you want to hold onto it for a while.

So if you are considering this product you may want to encase it in bubble wrap and a diaper so you don't have the same thing happen to you. A more realistic options is you skip this one and get a non-touch screen version instead. It may not be as cool as your I Phone but i am sure you would be happier in the long run. After i cool off i expect i will go down the same route.

23 of 24 found the following review helpful:

Requires great patience Mar 05, 2011 By Gary Keene "Eclectic Reader"
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.

18 of 18 found the following review helpful:

LCD Cracks Very Easily - Horrible Warranty Experience Dec 22, 2010 By Calgary_M
I've owned this remote for almost 1 year and today while home sick on the couch, it fell 15 inches to the floor and the LCD cracked. Logitech support said the warranty is voided by this.

I take very good care of my fragile products (iPhone, iPod, Kindle) and they've always handled the extremely rare accidental fall. Apparently dropping off the couch isn't covered. In no way should an expensive remote like this not withstand a 15 inch fall. This has to be considered a design flaw.

Logitech support has offer me a 50% off their hugely jacked up store pricing - essentially I can buy the remote again for what I'd find it at Newegg orAmazon.

Despite being a fan of the Harmony One, I can't emphasize this enough- do not buy this remote if you've every had one fall off the couch. The warranty will not cover you.

See all 1039 customer reviews on Amazon.com