GenX Digital

Anybody out there in the digital atmosphere knows the Harmony 768 is a pretty ancient (3 years old!) gadget. But, I had a few extras and sent one to a family friend. Here’s his review. I’ll add a few photos, but this is his experience with the unit. Anybody interested in trading some of their time writing a review on a product that I provide - let me know and we’ll work something out…

About eight weeks ago, I obtained a second-hand Harmony SST-768 remote. Logitech renamed this model the H768 when they acquired the Harmony line, so I’ll use that name for the rest of this review. The remote has its flaws, but
it is a substantial improvement over my former multiple-remote situation. The H768 is not a current model, but I imagine some of the H768’s characteristics are shared by other Harmony remotes (such as the way it is programmed), so I’m hoping some of my impressions will be useful to people considering current Harmony models.

I have a relatively low-end audio-visual setup. It’s based around a Sony STR-K840P receiver that came as part of a “home theater in a box” package. I’ve also got a Panasonic DVD player, Panasonic stereo VCR, and Sanyo standard definition TV as a video monitor. I use the DVD player to play CDs, and I usually have an iPod dock hooked up to the receiver’s CD input. The devices don’t have the connection options I’d like. For example, the VCR has only composite video output; the receiver has only composite video input and coaxial and composite video output. I do use a component video connection between the DVD player and the TV, but this means that I have to switch the TV input between the composite and component inputs depending on whether I’m using the VCR or the DVD player.

Over the past two years, we’ve replaced our old TV, DVD player, and VCR, but it was the TV which motivated me to look into universal remotes. About a year ago, my visiting father-in-law decided he couldn’t see the football games on our old TV and bought us the Sanyo set as a gift. Before this, we used the multi-device (non-learning) remote that came with the Sony receiver to control all of our devices. There was some device functionality which wasn’t available using this remote, but it worked well enough. When we got the new TV, I couldn’t find a code for the remote which allowed even minimal functionality. Because we use the TV as a video monitor only, we were able to use the receiver remote for everything - except selecting the TV input. This shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did, but it was enough of an annoyance that I started looking for a one-remote solution.

When I started looking, my list of requirements for that one remote was pretty short. I wanted it to: control all my current devices, be a learning remote (to protect against future upgrades to my home theater setup), be easy-enough to use that my wife and five-year-old daughter could/would use it, and be relatively inexpensive. For the most part, the H768 satisfies all of my these requirements.

I had little trouble programming the H768 to control all of my home theater devices, but I can see how it might be confusing to someone without a strong background with computers. Programming the H768 involves logging into Logitech’s Harmony Remotes web site, configuring a “virtual remote” on the web site, downloading the configuration to the local computer (the one you’re using to browse the Logitech web site), and using a Harmony communication program on the local computer that writes the configuration to the “real” remote control via a USB cable.

One of the big selling points of the Harmony remotes is that they are activity-based as opposed to device-based. For example, instead of telling the remote to “turn on the receiver and set it to the video 1 input, then turn on the VCR, then turn on the TV and set it to the video 1 input”, you tell the remote you want to “watch TV.” The remote makes whatever changes that are necessary so that each component is doing what it is supposed to be doing. If the TV is already on and set to the right input when you say “watch TV,” the Harmony doesn’t send any commands to the TV. Although the activity-based concept was foreign to my wife and daughter at first, they now seem to really like it.

When programming the remote, you describe your components and then define the activities you want the remote to control. The Harmony web site includes a large database of components, selectable by manufacturer name and model number. The database included all of my devices except the Sony receiver. When it became clear the database didn’t have an entry for my receiver, the web site downloaded a script for the Harmony communication program that, when run, asked me to point the original remote at the H768 and press three or four buttons on the original remote. The H768 apparently delivered the infrared commands it detected to the Harmony communication program, which sent them to the Harmony web site and looked for a close match to some device in its database. For my receiver, it found a near match.

Harmony (or Logitech) has done a good job in trying to smooth the programming process, but it is still complex. Worse, when something goes wrong it can be very difficult to identify what failed and how to fix it. In my case, at some point updates to the remote’s configuration stopped working correctly. The update would start successfully, but the communication program’s progress bar would stop at 90%. I tried everything I could think of to fix or work around the problem including resetting the remote by removing all devices and activities, but that left the remote in an unusable state. Finally, near the end of February an entry was posted to the Harmony web site’s support forum that described the symptoms I was seeing as a problem with the remote’s firmware that caused the update problem during February. The problem went away March 1, but it was entirely unclear what was going on until I saw the entry in the Harmony forum. My wife is quite computer savvy and likes the Harmony remote, but I think she would revert to using multiple remotes before she’d figure out how to program the remote.

Earlier I described the activity-based nature of the Harmony remotes, and how the remote will not issue commands to a component if it is already doing what it should be. Because the remote can’t ask each component what they’re currently doing (at least with my devices), the remote has to keep track of what each component is doing. That is, the remote has to keep track of each component’s “state.” For instance, when I tell the remote to “watch TV,” the remote relies on whether it thinks the TV is currently on when deciding whether to send a “power toggle” command because it can’t ask the TV whether it is on or off. This scheme works perfectly well if the remote is *always* used to control all components, because then the remote’s idea of the state is in sync with the actual state. However, if someone controls a component without using the remote (for instance, when my five-year-old turns the TV on by pressing the TV power button), the remote’s idea of the state is out of sync with reality. Depending on exactly which component is out of sync, and how they are out of sync, the remote might issue commands that do the wrong thing, such as turning the TV off instead of leaving it on. In a household like mine, this seems to happen often - we aren’t disciplined enough to use the remote always to control everything in our home theater.

Thankfully, the Harmony designers expected the “out-of-sync” problem, and provided a workaround. The remote has a “Help” button that, when pushed, asks yes/no questions via the remote’s LCD screen about the state of each component. If the component isn’t in the right state, the remote issues a command to change the component’s state and then asks the question again. After this sequence of yes/no questions, the remote’s idea of the components’ state and their actual state are again in sync. Again, my wife likes the H768 and is quite technically savvy, but after eight weeks with the remote I have yet to see her use this Help feature to re-sync the remote’s state.

For me, the remote’s functionality is much more important than how it looks and feels. I get the impression that isn’t true for everyone, so here are my thoughts about this remote’s physical characteristics. The H768 is relatively short and thick, with an black-and-white LCD screen, all hard buttons, and a scroll wheel on the right side. The scroll wheel is the main mechanism for navigating through lists shown on the LCD screen - it can be pressed to select an item. I like the hard buttons, but they are not easily distinguished by feel so I can’t easily change channels or adjust volume without looking at the remote. One strange design choice was to put the LCD screen at the bottom of the remote instead of at the top (like a cell phone). Most people at our house end up holding the remote backward at first. I haven’t had to replace the three AAA batteries in the eight weeks I’ve had the remote.

When we got the remote, I had read about the Harmony’s activity-based nature but my wife hadn’t, so while it was a surprise for her it was not a surprise for me. One feature that was a surprise for both of us was the remote’s ability to store up to two weeks’ worth of TV listings. Using the Logitech web site, I configured the remote for my local cable company’s channel listing, picked a subset of those channels as my favorites, and said I’d like to store TV listings for two weeks. I really like this feature, but it does mean that I have to use the web site to update my remote’s configuration every two weeks.

In the end, our situation with the H768 is substantially better than without. We really like the activity-based nature of the Harmony remotes, and the TV listings were a nice surprise. The fact that the remote easily gets out of sync with my home theater components and the complexity of getting them back in sync are its two biggest drawbacks. Perhaps the bottom line is best illustrated using my last requirement - that the remote be relatively inexpensive. Although I received the H768 at no cost to me, after a few weeks with the remote I asked my wife about her impressions of the remote. The upshot: she wouldn’t pay even $100 for a remote with the Harmony’s features, I’d have no problem.