Universal Remote control

[Aqua]

Stephen found this remote suited the needs of his family.

I've had the 50" Fujitsu P50XHA51AS for three weeks now

I have a Teac DVB-800 feeding HD/SD via DVI->HDMI, a Sony DVD player at 576p via component and a Topfield Masterpiece PVR via component at 576i.

While picture quality is one factor in family acceptance, the other is ease of use.

The old TV had an analogue tuner with a good picture and the kids could use the simple remote to turn it on or off and change channels. The Fuji has no tuner and relies on the Teac STB to change channels. Luckily I'd heard good things about the Harmony 520 remote ($119). This turned out to be the silver bullet is getting family acceptance. Three days after getting the 520 I watched my four year old daughter pick it up turn on the TV then start changing channels, a day later I watched my wife, tape then play back a show on the PVR. She had never used the PVR herself up until now. It also integrates the DVD player seamlessly in with the TV. I really can't say enough good things about this remote if you need to integrate a number of pieces of AV gear together into a family friendly setup.

Stephen

[Grant1503559688]

Life just gets more complex

Just went through the setup test drive for the harmony on their website, looks v impressive. As the DSE is only 1 week old and they have a 14 day change of mind policy I thinkl I might go and visit Dick again. I have my BigW catalogue, the Harmony is on page 6.

Grant

[whamcs]

Stephen found this remote suited the needs of his family.

Hi Guys,

I'll add a bit more to this as I posted the above in another thread that Aqua is quoting from. I have both the Marantz 5200 (superseded by the 5400) and the 520 as described in Aqua's quote. So why do I have both? The 5200 can control my entire HT setup (projector amps, lights etc...). When the kids want to watch a movie on the projector they pick up the 5200 and press one button (On), this lowers the screen, powers up the projector, turns on the processor and DVD player and sets everything on the correct inputs and sets the correct volume. The kids then put the remote back and only touch it again to press the 'Off' button. The 5200 is very powerful and flexible. For TV channels you can set up one button that says 'NBN HD' on the LCD screen that will blast out a macro to send the STB an '8' delay '0' to set it on the NBN HD channel 80 and obviously customise the LCD screen (for example). The down side is that programming it is time consuming and it is fragile (don't drop it!). For general TV watching I wanted a remote that is easy to use and could take the abuse of the kids throwing it around and the dog picking it up in its mouth and running off with it (I kid you not!). The 520 is a good compromise as it’s easy to use and program, but saying that it doesn't have the flexibility of the 5200. So it really depends on your needs and the complexity of your setup.

Cheers,

Stephen

[PVE]

Harmony 520 is no particular bargain at $118. you can buy it athat price from on-line retailers without any difficulty. i'm sure I checked it out and found it a thing of great beauty - to hold and just to look at. As i recall i found it fiddly to change between items and that the setting up was not particularly up to date as it did not recognize Foxtel IQ or the LG HD recorder. Please understand I checked out heaps last week and they all kind of blur. Is this the unit which cannot learn IQ commands?

PS I still maintain that the DSE at $75 is an excellent all rounder at the price. I don't like the idea of 'scrolling' through pages to get the command I want. None of the devices keyed into the DSE require a second page of commands. But, as i have said before, the great thing about opinions is that everybody has got one. And a good thing too.

Edited March 29, 2006 by PVE

[mquin1503560492]

PVE,

I have been following this post with interest .... and I have a quick question ...

how easy was the DSE to setup for the LG HD PVR ? did the DSE immediately recognize the device ?

cheers

matt

Harmony 520 is no particular bargain at $118. you can buy it athat price from on-line retailers without any difficulty. i'm sure I checked it out and found it a thing of great beauty - to hold and just to look at. As i recall i found it fiddly to change between items and that the setting up was not particularly up to date as it did not recognize Foxtel IQ or the LG HD recorder. Please understand I checked out heaps last week and they all kind of blur. Is this the unit which cannot learn IQ commands?

PS I still maintain that the DSE at $75 is an excellent all rounder at the price. I don't like the idea of 'scrolling' through pages to get the command I want. None of the devices keyed into the DSE require a second page of commands. But, as i have said before, the great thing about opinions is that everybody has got one. And a good thing too.

[daft009]

just picked one up at bigw macquarie for $118.

any chance of this working with HTPCs?

save me opening the packaging if it won't

[hogsa]

Harmony 520 is no particular bargain at $118. you can buy it athat price from on-line retailers without any difficulty. i'm sure I checked it out and found it a thing of great beauty - to hold and just to look at. As i recall i found it fiddly to change between items and that the setting up was not particularly up to date as it did not recognize Foxtel IQ or the LG HD recorder. Please understand I checked out heaps last week and they all kind of blur. Is this the unit which cannot learn IQ commands?

PS I still maintain that the DSE at $75 is an excellent all rounder at the price. I don't like the idea of 'scrolling' through pages to get the command I want. None of the devices keyed into the DSE require a second page of commands. But, as i have said before, the great thing about opinions is that everybody has got one. And a good thing too.

Can you tell me what other things you have set up other than the IQ and LG PVR ? Does it turn on all the other devices OK ? Does it change all channels successfully ?

I haven't bought a remote control as yet but definitely want one. Figure there's no point purchasing a $1000 one if isn't going to be perfect, so something nasty and cheap that turns on muliple devices with one click and any other limited functionality would be good, especially if less than $100-150. Tossing up between the DSE and the Harmony 520. I have a topfield 5000PVRt, Fuji 50" plasma, marantz SR4300 reciever, Maranz DVD player, and dgtech 2000i STB and one of the most keenest Toppy HD PVR queuers around. Would love one that works with all these things to atleast turn on functionality.

[172 Flyer]

Harmony 520 is no particular bargain at $118. you can buy it athat price from on-line retailers without any difficulty. i'm sure I checked it out and found it a thing of great beauty - to hold and just to look at. As i recall i found it fiddly to change between items and that the setting up was not particularly up to date as it did not recognize Foxtel IQ or the LG HD recorder. Please understand I checked out heaps last week and they all kind of blur. Is this the unit which cannot learn IQ commands?

I've got a Harmony 525 and I too found that the set-up from choosing Foxtel IQ in the known devises was not very good, however it took literally 1 minute to teach the harmony all of the required IQ commands, it really is very easy. The reason that I bought the 525 from overseas was so that I would have the 4 coloured buttons to match up with the IQ so I wouldn't have to map those to buttons against the LCD display. $118 sounds like a good deal to me, the cheapest I've seen them on-line for is $111.

[AdrianW1503559681]

When the kids want to watch a movie on the projector they pick up the 5200 and press one button (On), this lowers the screen, powers up the projector, turns on the processor and DVD player and sets everything on the correct inputs and sets the correct volume. The kids then put the remote back and only touch it again to press the 'Off' button.

The Harmony remote can do exactly the same thing, so what's your point? Well, I guess they'd have to press "Watch DVD" rather than "On". Anyway, I'm pretty sure "Watch DVD" is more intuative than "On" when you have multiple devices.

[whamcs]

The Harmony remote can do exactly the same thing, so what's your point? Well, I guess they'd have to press "Watch DVD" rather than "On". Anyway, I'm pretty sure "Watch DVD" is more intuative than "On" when you have multiple devices.

Hi AdrianW,

Whether it says "On" or "Watch DVD" is not the point. In my case the kids only ever watch a DVD on the projector so "On" or "Watch DVD" is irrelevant. The point I was trying to make is that the 5200 offers more flexibility from a setup / configuration / programming point of view than the 520. There is plenty of information available on the Marantz / Pronto style remotes and their programming interface (Remote Central) to compare against the 520.

Regards,

Stephen

Edited March 29, 2006 by whmacs

[dogsrus]

The Harmony remote can do exactly the same thing, so what's your point? Well, I guess they'd have to press "Watch DVD" rather than "On". Anyway, I'm pretty sure "Watch DVD" is more intuative than "On" when you have multiple devices.

I have the Harmony 659, 676 & 688 (one in each room) with upto 10 devices, and all operate perfectly, learning commands is simple, setup is simple even for complicated tasks, and Philips devices that use parity bits in their commands. I bought all 3 for much less than $1000. My wife uses them and has no trouble, and they have been dropped etc. I don't see much value in buying any remote that costs more than about $300.

[PVE]

PVE,

I have been following this post with interest .... and I have a quick question ...

how easy was the DSE to setup for the LG HD PVR ? did the DSE immediately recognize the device ?

cheers

matt

No problems at all. I have the major LG functions set up on my Plasma device screen and still had space for a simple macro (Plasma on; Input 3 hdmi; LG on). For more complex functions I go the LG device screen. Look, it is not perfect - it sometimes requires lateral thinking. For example the cable(Foxtel) screen uses both 'yellow' and 'stop' for the same button. I looked for an alternative symbol which could be mistaken for '0' or stop. Job done.

Can you tell me what other things you have set up other than the IQ and LG PVR ?

The tevion DVD recorder (no Problems); Pioneer plasma (no problems) Humax Smart (no problems)

cambridge audio CD player ( no problems exc. it won't power on - well you gotta get up and put a disc in anyway!)

Does it turn on all the other devices OK ? Does it change all channels successfully ?

Yes. Yes(exc. for Cambridge)

That last one is a bit odd as it learnt everything else on the Cambridge and indeed that is the only command it does not learn over all six devices.

PS - Some people have posted that there are problems in learning. i know this may seem very obvious but a factor that MAY cause difficulties is in attempting to get a learning device to learn/operate under fluorescent lights. These can cause significant interference for a learning device. These lights are not just tubes, but also all those energy efficient globes which have finallt become cheap enough for us to afford and save electricity.

Edited March 29, 2006 by PVE

[Tony M]

Well, my first impressions aren't great. The construction appears quite flimsy and "plasticky" and the thing twists and creaks when pressing the power-off button. But what can you expect for this price?

Set-up was causing some hassles. The software seems to insist that I have to have my DVD player on to watch TV via the LG PVR! Still, I'll obviously need to spend some more time on it.......except the logitech website is suddenly down for maintenance!

To cap that off, the LG has started to do its vibration/rattle again and I thought that was fixed.

Isn't technology wonderful?

[PaulP33]

Can someone with one of the harmony 520s check if the hauppauge mediaMVP (a networked media player) is listed as a device. I cannot for the life of me find a link on their website where you can check the database of devices before buying one. Alternatively does anyone know if it is capable of learning RC5 codes?

[angryofmayfair]

I have had a 520 for a couple of months now, I bought it for the family room stuff after having an 880 in the rumpus room that works a treat.

The 520 is a little plastiky as you mention - but it seems to do the job, it's almost as powerful in functionality as the (twice the price) 880.

Having been through many many learning remotes over the years including a way overpriced/overated Pronto I personally have found the Harmonies to be brilliant - you do have to go through a bit of pain setting them up (mainly the awful website) but it's nowhere near as bad as setting up macros on a Pronto and once they are set up they work properly 100% - WAF is very high - it's no longer too difficult for her to switch on the Toppy/plasma/dvd etc - it's all done with one button press.

The first day of owning the 880 was close to the last - I almost sent it back but I'm glad I persisted with it - it's just so good to have *everything* (incl a/c & X10 lights) controlled by just the one remote - the dozen or more original remotes are now in a drawer with the batteries removed.... :-)

I guess that it took a week or two before I was completly happy with the configs but that was months ago and they are both now used on a daily basis with no more 'fine tuning' needed...

Can someone with one of the harmony 520s check if the hauppauge mediaMVP (a networked media player) is listed as a device. I cannot for the life of me find a link on their website where you can check the database of devices before buying one. Alternatively does anyone know if it is capable of learning RC5 codes?

You can set up a 'test drive' on the harmony website that will then allow you to check and add any device that is on the database.

A lot of the database is corrupt - many devices have additional codes that are not relevant and other codes that don't do what they should but it's very easy to use the 'learn' function and teach commands from your own remotes.

They will even learn 'raw' ir streams and can be persuaded to learn a string of 'raw' ir's as a sort of macro.

AFAIK, they will learn just about any sort of IR code.

I have been able to teach both my 880 & 520 all sorts of ir codes incl X10 and mistral A/C but I'm not sure about 'RC5' - what are these codes?

[Scratch2k]

I have had my eye on the 880 for a while, but the pricing of the 520 has me thinking that it is probably a better buy at this stage, however my main concern is how it will handle working with a (modded) xbox. I use my xbox to view media from a server and the standard xbox remote works really well for this, pretty much all the buttons are used (including the directional and the 4 white buttons around the directional buttons).

Can anyone who has a 880 or 520 comment on how the software/hardware works to emulate an xbox DVD remote control? There just don't seem to be enough hard buttons on the 520 to replace all the functions of the standard buttons on the xbox (or for that matter, even a standard dvd) remote.

[GLN]

Does anybody know what the battery life is for the Harmony 520?

[AdrianW1503559681]

Can anyone who has a 880 or 520 comment on how the software/hardware works to emulate an xbox DVD remote control? There just don't seem to be enough hard buttons on the 520 to replace all the functions of the standard buttons on the xbox (or for that matter, even a standard dvd) remote.

I don't know for sure - but there is a special version of the 520 (I've seen them in EB's) for the xbox 360.

But, apart from that, all the Harmony's (including theb 520 & 880) can perform all the functions you need. If a specific hard button is not available, the command (by default) will appear on the LCD display. There are page fwd & page back buttons near the LCD to scroll through all the less used commands.

[Scratch2k]

I don't know for sure - but there is a special version of the 520 (I've seen them in EB's) for the xbox 360.

But, apart from that, all the Harmony's (including theb 520 & 880) can perform all the functions you need. If a specific hard button is not available, the command (by default) will appear on the LCD display. There are page fwd & page back buttons near the LCD to scroll through all the less used commands.

So, for example if the XBOX remote has a "Info" button, and this button isn't mapped to a hard button via the "activity" that's been defined, will that "info" button be available as an option in the LCD via scrolling?

If so, this is exactly the answer I was looking for...thanks!

[172 Flyer]

So, for example if the XBOX remote has a "Info" button, and this button isn't mapped to a hard button via the "activity" that's been defined, will that "info" button be available as an option in the LCD via scrolling?

If so, this is exactly the answer I was looking for...thanks!

Yes it could, or there is a info button on the remote, so you could map it to that, you can change any of the mappings for an activity.

The wife insisted last night we buy a 520 for the bedroom as she finds the 525 we have in the lounge so easy to use.

[Typhoon]

Hey all,

The 885 (RF version), 890 (includes the 4 colour buttons but non-RF), and the 895 (RF version with the 4 colour buttons) are only available overseas.

I spoke to Logitech this morning, and they tell me there are no plans to bring any of that functionality to the Australian model. We will only ever get the 880.

Anyone know why? Are we scum?

Didn't someone on this forum say that Australia is one of the 'early adopters' of technology, we take to stuff faster than most. So why do we get new stuff last?

Sh*ts me.

How is the 880 with Foxtel?

[Chui2]

Hey Typhoon,

Totally agree.

There are a few other models I saw on a German site (can't remember the model no's - maybe 7 series) that had the four buttons as well. Looked well suited to Foxtel/Austar, but we apparently won't be getting those either. Economies of scale I guess (or the local mob can't be arsed).

I programmed the in-laws 880 with my own system to check that it was OK before handing it over, and it worked perfectly with Foxtel.

Cheers,

Chui

[Typhoon]

Thanks Chui

[Guest metalrules]

I've got an MX500 I use for my a Home Theatre room, and another for the family to use watching TV in the family. They've been fantasic - the kids have dropped the 'family' one several times, its still going strong (Note : JB HiFi where selling the MX500 under the Sherwood brand recently for $300, I'm sure you could get one cheaper on the net) The reviews at RemoteCentral.com area good source for remote controls..

[Scratch2k]

(crosspost but I figured people may find this of use here)

After getting the Harmony 520 home it took about 2 hours to set up (mostly because of difficulties with switching to the correct AV input on my TV), here's my mini review:

Things I like:

1) The software is easy to install and use, adding devices and setting up activities is very intuitive. If you are lucky enough to have common devices and you use them in a pretty standard way, I can see the setup taking less than 30 minutes. I ran into some trouble because my TV is a bit odd in how it switches AV inputs, but the troubleshooting aspects of the software are very helpful and with some fiddling I eventually got everything working as intended. The problem with my TV was that you can't switch AV inputs with a single button, or even the cycling of more than one button, the AV inputs have a channel number like all the other (i.e. 7, 9, 10 are TV channels and 196, 197, 198 and 199 are the AV inputs) so I had to do some fiddling to make the remote send a 2 second delay, then hit the 1 9 6 or 1 9 9 buttons to get to the wanted AV input..the software supports all this wackyness via the troubleshooter.

2) Related to 1), the procedure to update the software and firmare was painless and quick.

3) I have replaced 6 remotes with the 520, the ritual I used to perform for watching a DVD or watching something on XBMC now involves a single button (rather than picking up and putting down 3-4 remotes).

4) My main concern with this remote was how it would handle controlling the xbox and XBMC. The 520 handles XBMC very well, I had to manually map one button to "display" but apart from that it works as you would expect, if only the XBOX supported remotely switching on (the 360 does, but the original xbox doesn't).

5) It has an IR transmitter on the front and the back of the remote, my projector is behind where I sit, so this means that as long as I hold it slightly above my head from sitting position it turns on all the devices and the projector when I want to watch a DVD, probably not something most people will notice but I love it. Also, the IT transmitters seem very strong..even when I blocked the rear IR sender the signal still managed to bounce from the front of the room to the projector to turn it on (about a 10m round trip), this is something none of my standard remotes can do.

6) If something isn't working as intended, the HELP button on the remote usually solves the problem. For example, if you hit "Play a DVD" and the DVD player doesn't switch on for whatever reason, just hit the HELP button and the remote seems to re-send a selection of signals, then asks you if that solved the problem (i.e. it probably sends out "turn tv on" "turn dvd player on" and "turn amp on"). If that doesn't fix the problem - it usually does - then it will cycle through other options, asking you at each step if that solved the problem, nice!

7) The config is stored on a central server, so if at some stage I decide to upgrade to an 880, I should be able to program it with all the same functions in less than 5 minutes.

Things I don't like:

1) I've probably been spoiled by my Loewe TV remote, which is made of some kind of metal and has hard plastic buttons, it's very solid and I am confident that in a pinch I could use it to fend off a home invasion, however, the Harmony 520 feels very light and plastic. The rubberized buttons also bug me a bit, some of them are very small and when you press a button on the numeric keypad all the buttons wiggle around like there's a bag of worms in there, it just feels a bit cheap (well, it *is* cheap, so this isn't a complaint, just an observation..the TV remote came with a $3.5k TV).

1.5) The shiney surfaces on the 520 are prone to fingerprints, a minor complaint, but since the shiney surfaces make up more than 50% of total surface area, it bugs me.

2) The software to program the remote is web based and therefore prone to times of high load on the server and slow internet connections. I'm on ISDN so some of the activities took a while to accomplish, but this could be attributed to a high server load last night as evident by some errors I was getting when trying to add new devices via the remote software (google tells me that the error I was getting was exactly that, high server load). However, I was able to log into the website interface at http://www.harmonyremote.com/ and it let me add new devices and do _most_ of the programming (the actual software still has more - and better - functionality).

3) The online database of devices appears to have a bit of corruption. This is probably a side effect of letting users enter their own devices but as an example, my TV had 3 entries two of which were the wrong model number (the model listed that was close to mine don't exist, so I assume it was a typo by someone)..just use some intelligence in selecting devices and it should be ok.

4) There are other models available internationally that have RF capabilities and extra buttons, but only the 520 is available in Aus..perhaps we're just simple folk and Logitech didn't want to confuse us with options.

Stuff I'm still thinking about:

1) I'm not sure about battery life yet, I'm pretty sure that using 4 AAA alkalines running an LCD and backlight is going to be a profitable venture for Duracell, when the provided (2 sets!) batteries run out I'll be trying some rechargables.

2) WAF is undetermined as yet, but I'm pretty sure it will be high.

NINJA EDIT: It seems that the "rear IR" port isn't actually a transmitter but a reciever, for learning. So the front IR port must be very strong, either way, it's a good thing.

Edited March 30, 2006 by Scratch2k