Reviews for Logitech Harmony 555 Universal Remote Control

great remote, bad software

Strengths: overall build quality, well thought-out handling

Weakness: web-based software is very slow, has bugs plastic packaging can only be opened with a chainsaw

the handling of the remote is very clever. it lets you define 'Activities' like 'watch DVD', which take care of all necessary steps - switching on all appliances, setting them to the correct inputs, etc. there is also a 'Sound' and 'Picture' mode for each activity to adjust sound- and picture-settings.
the remote looks very elegant, is not too bulky and the overall build quality seems to be very solid. most buttons are made of soft rubber without a click. unfortunately, the most used buttons - volume up/down and channel up/down - are made of hard plastic, are tiny and have a very hard click - I have my doubts as to how long they'll last.

the real weakness of the package, however, is the harmony software. Logitech decided to use a web-based software, so every user input is first sent to Logitech's web server. this makes the software very slow - it sometimes takes 20 to 30 seconds to respond to a click! also, registration of a user account is necessary in order to use the software - if you're paranoid about privacy, keep in mind that Logitech thus has a list of all electronic devices of each user...

the remote is programmed with a series of wizards where you answer questions like 'when watching a DVD, which devices should be switched on' etc. Logitech has a giant database containing IR codes even for very exotic devices; however, it doesn't seem to be too accurate. in the case of my video projector (a very popular model) not a single button actually worked. in this case, the remote can learn the commands from your original remote.

the overall UI design of the software is pretty unstructured, and has quite a few bugs like 'dead end' wizard pages that don't allow you to go back or to the main menu.

once you've finished setting up your devices and activities in the software, the configuration is uploaded to the remote via USB cable. this is quite a slow process as well and takes around a minute. worse - quite often the remote refuses to communicate with the software in the first place, in which case the remote needs to be rebooted by removing and inserting the batteries.

all in all, still one of the best universal remotes out there - just be prepared to spend quite some time for the configuration.

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Logitech Harmony 555

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