6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Awesome Remote for Entertainment Centers with Lots of Components!
Date of Review: Jul 20, 2008
The Bottom Line: I totally recommend the Harmony One to anyone who has more than two remotes. It's easy to use and works with almost any device you might have.
We got the Harmony One remote a few weeks ago to eliminate our growing collection of remote controls. So far, we really like it!
Setup was relatively easy. The hardest part about it was going around the house writing down model numbers for all the devices we wanted the remote to be able to control. The setup is online, and there is a huge database of possible devices the Harmony One can control. We're using ours to control two flatscreens, an Xbox 360, a Wii (sort of- more on that later), two TiVos, a DVD/CD sound system, and an iPod dock via the sound system.
We customized the remote to our liking, creating virtual buttons that were easy to understand so that anyone who visited (like my non-tech-savvy parents) could run the entertainment center. "Watch Living Room TiVo" or "Play Xbox 360" are two examples. One thing we weren't sure of when we bought the remote was whether it would run more than one entertainment center. It does! We were able to get it to control both our living room and bedroom setups.
You set up the remote to make your whole entertainment center work for what you're trying to do. If we want to play Xbox, for example, we push "Play Xbox 360" on the remote, and the remote turns on the TV to the right input, turns on the Xbox and turns on the sound system to the correct setting. Easy as that.
We have a button called "Play Wii", but it can't control the Wii itself because the Wii uses bluetooth. It will put the TV to the right input setting and turn on the sound system to the right input, but won't actually turn on the Wii.
Sometimes, the remote doesn't get it right the first time. Maybe it doesn't put the TV on the right setting, for example, but there's a help button which takes you through a guided question session whereby it attempts to fix the problem on its own. There have been only a handful of occasions when it couldn't fix the issue and I had to manually do it (still through the Harmony remote).
The remote has a recharging dock, so you won't have to worry about replacing batteries. Nice!
Overall, this remote is great. After hearing about ours, my in-laws bought one for their house and even set it up themselves. That's saying something!
