Universal remotes

My Harmony stopped turning my TV on/off the other day, everything else still worked. I checked the programming and everything was good, I was pissed for a few days. I was ready to rip the damn thing out and say frick it. Then I realized the IR blaster had been moved, it wasn't pointing towards the TV.

I have had intermittent bugginess with my Harmony Hub, but I think it's worked essentially without issue for 18 months now without even a power cycle.


I like the 950, and I usually find a returned unit and have had good success there. I don't know that it's any better than the One other than having Home Control buttons. If you don't have smart lighting, I'm not certain you will really see a benefit from the One vs Elite.

quote:

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bitching about the 950 and saying the older remotes were better.

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They did away with physical numbers and didn't really make the remote smaller, lighter, or more durable. I don't like that.
It's as solid as nearly any Harmony remote I've felt, but it's not some big step up.
The prior flagship remote (Harmony One Advanced) was probably a little bit nicer. It's as if they took it, upgraded the screen, removed the number buttons, added the RF-to-IR option and didn't put a whole lot more thought than that into it.


I like the layout of the 650/665/750 (largely the same remote) better than the current models, but I like the hub control (no need to point, phone is a backup when the battery is dead which seems to be about every other week, and it controls over IP for my Roku so it can stay hidden and firestick by Bluetooth).


FIL has a control4 setup at his little vacation home. The remote is really nice and really functional, but I hate the idea of not being able to reprogram it myself. Ex: switching from cable to satellite would mean a visit from his dealer who is ~60 minutes away. As reasonable as people who deal with the stuff say the price is, the performance of Harmony + ability to change out the components and create your own macros/sequences just makes it hard to justify a remote that's AS expensive with more ongoing costs.



Clarification: if $200-500 is a trivial price to pay someone to "set and forget" things that are just going to work for a long time reliably for you, by all means, those belong in the conversation (at least I think you can get URC or basic Control4 setup in that range. I've never actually discussed pricing with a dealer but find the hardware to be around this price before it's configured when I try to find the cost).