Logitech Harmony 676 Universal Remote Control | List Price: $199.99
Discount Price: $79.99
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Brand: Logitech
Binding: Electronics
Features: - Comprehensive remote control integrates entire home theater system with 1-button use
- Watch a Video, Listen to Music, and Watch TV buttons activate all necessary components and settings
- Integrates up to 15 devices, including TVs, CD and DVD players, satellite systems, speakers, and more
- Sets up quickly and easily with online Web wizard
- Comes with 3 changeable faceplates, USB cable, and 4 AAA batteries
My kids (and I) love it! [Posted on 2007-12-27]
If it were up to me, we would have an Xbox instead. However, we bought the Wii for the kid friendly games. The bowling and tennis have been big hits for our family. We also bought High School Musical and Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii.
If you are going to upgrade the cables to component cables, might I suggest buying them from www.monoprice.com. Their component cables are only about $9 shipped, vs the $20-$60 component cables.
BTW, I broke out in a nice sweat in the boxing game. At least I won. And make sure your kids wear that wrist band. Now I can see how all those remotes ended up breaking TVs. Yikes!
Help that was needed [Posted on 2008-01-02]
New HDTV in combination with DVR box, A/V receiver and DVD player was going to be a problem with the existing cable company remote. The Harmony 676 does it all. Setup was easy with just a little computer knowledge. Occasionally it doesn't perform the functions as requested but usually because of operator error and it takes very little to correct the problem. Battery life isn't great but you can bypass that issue with rechargeables.
Just what I wanted in a remote! [Posted on 2008-01-08]
I won't waste your time with a long detailed list of all the Harmony's features, you can find those all over. What I will tell you is that this remote is super easy to set up with on your computer, it found all of my home theater components and worked with them right off the bat. But probably the best feature it has is the little help button and a screen. The previous universal learning remote we owned worked great, except if you turned it slightly or happened to step in front of it while it was setting all the components properly for what you wanted to do, if one thing got messed up, it was a pain in the butt for anyone other than myself to fix. My wife didn't really care for it. But now I can leave her alone with the Harmony, knowing that if something got set to the wrong input/channel/etc. she can just hit the help button, and it walks her through what might be the problem, usually fixing it on it's own. That to me made this good remote great.
Excellent, but not lasting [Posted on 2008-04-10]
I've owned this model for two years now, so I'll review the problems I've encountered. Others have described the positive aspects and the operation of the unit, so I won't repeat them, but don't interpret that as an indictment of this model.
The biggest problem I've faced is that the key contacts on this remote are simply not built to last. The buttons you use most WILL wear down much faster than the ones you use less. When this happens, the worn buttons will start to occasionally fail to make contact. The first few times a button fails, you think you somehow missed it, but it quickly gets worse and you have to press the button more than once to get it to work. As it continues to worsen, the button works only if you wiggle it or jam it down. This makes using the remote a very frustrating experience. And yes, I could reprogram a different button to do what the broken one does, but that would screw up the layout, and the layout is an integral part of the experience. Mine is at a point where I need to replace it and it doesn't seem reasonable to me that an $80 remote should last only 2 years. It makes me hesitate to get a more expensive Logitech model.
The second problem is minor, but might be confusing for some users. When you program the 6 buttons around the screen, the software sometimes rearranges the order of the buttons. There's a pattern to the shuffling, so natural problem solvers will figure it out and play along, but some users won't want to bother with puzzles. It's my understanding that the higher end Logitech models use the same configuration software, so I'm not sure if upgrading would fix it.
Lastly, this isn't so much a problem as something you should be aware of. The backlighting is fully configurable. You can turn it to manual or set how long it stays on after you hit a button. The issue is that if it's used at all, the battery life takes a serious beating. This isn't Logitech's fault; it's just basic physics.
Aside from the disappointment of throwing away an $80 remote after 2 years, this is still a great little product.
5 stars while it lasts... [Posted on 2008-06-08]
Initially I would easily have given this remote 5 stars. I told everyone how fun it was to program and how great it worked as a universal remote. Imagine how nice it is to hit an activity button like TV or DVD, and then all of your components turn on and automatically turn to the correct setting.
That 5 star rating has degraded to about 2 maybe 1 star about a year and a half later when the most commonly used buttons wore out and either never work or you have to use your finger nail and push really hard on the buttons. I don't believe this remote was over-worked or abused in that time. I actually kind of babied it because of it's price and how much I liked it.
I guess when I purchased a $150 remote I expected it to last at least 3 years.
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