Universal Remote - £40 or under

[Silverbullet767]

In need of a remote to replace the mountains of remotes on the living room table.

Will need to control:

Samsung TV
Xbox 360
Sony DVD Player
Sky HD box
Bose iPod Dock

Been looking at the Logitech Harmony 555 - Available on Amazon for under £40.

Any other contenders?

Edited for mongness.

Edited by Silverbullet767 on Tuesday 27th April 15:55

[FunkyGibbon]

I've a logitech harmony one (I know outside your budget of £40) and it is great. I think the only major difference is the one has a touch screen and the 555 has real buttons (which some reviewers prefer to be honest).

If you take you time setting the thing up with the on-line tool it will be great. The hide the other remotes from other users...

Only thing to watch is keep the old remotes in a box somewhere once setup. It works by remembering the state (on/off/channel/input etc) of the devices - so if you turn a device off with the device remote - the harmony will still think it is on and get confused. If you see what I mean.

Other than that - great pieces of kit.

[Silverbullet767]

Great, I'll order one today, I like faffing about setting things up anyway. (she doesn't)

[Silver940]

I have a 525 and since getting it we no longer use the other remotes - about 18 months now. Enough said, although the text/colours on the buttons is now wearing off!

[illmonkey]

Silverbullet767 said:

Great, I'll order one today, I like faffing about setting things up anyway. (she doesn't)

I've got one (can't remember the name) and its hard to get right. I've just set it up so it does sky, TV and stereo (volume only) when its on 1 mode. Then programmed the devices into it. Its no where as seamless as you'd hope. I might give it an other go, but I've tried several times and I can never get it right.

[Bullett]

I use a harmony one and it's been 99% flawless for me. The only problems I've had have been occasionally a device not picking up a signal.

I control a TV, PS3, Sky+ and an AV amp at the moment. I'm adding an audio channel activity (switch on and control volume on the Squeezebox) but it's very simple to use.

The Mrs loves it becasue it got rid of 4 other controllers and she only needs to press one button to get the set up working instead of
1. Power on tv, power on sky, power on amp.
2. TV on right channel
3. AV on right channel

[Dupont666]

I have this one:



http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/440408/art/one-for...

Well actually I have the 8 instead of the 5:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kameleon-8-way-Remote-Cont...

But mine only cost £35 from Comet

Edited by Dupont666 on Wednesday 28th April 11:22

[Silverbullet767]

I was warned off the allforone remotes, damage is done now anyway, ordered at amazon for £38.20

Look out for my future threads....

"How do I work this remote?"

"Why wont it effin work?"

"My GF left me because of my anger issues"

"Anyone want to buy a Logitech Harmony 555?"

[FunkyGibbon]

You'll be fine if you make a note of all the settings on each bit of kit you want for each activity.

e.g. Watching Sky:

TV on and set to HDMI1
Sky Box On
Amp on and set to input D-TV

DVD:

Tv on and set to HDM12
DVD on

etc - and adjust for your own circumstances with your kit.

Then connect the remote to a PC or laptop (helps if PC or laptop are in the room you are setting up) and follow the on-screen instructions on how to set up activities.

Edited by FunkyGibbon on Wednesday 28th April 12:00

[illmonkey]

FunkyGibbon said:

You'll be fine if you make a note of all the settings on each bit of kit you want for each activity.

e.g. Watching Sky:

TV on and set to HDMI1
Sky Box On
Amp on and set to input D-TV

DVD:

Tv on and set to HDM12
DVD on

etc - and adjust for your own circumstances with your kit.

Then connect the remote to a PC or laptop (helps if PC or laptop are in the room you are setting up) and follow the on-screen instructions on how to set up activities.

Edited by FunkyGibbon on Wednesday 28th April 12:00

You see, this is the flaw in the remote.

It isnt "Sky remote ON" its "Sky remote Power", so if someones turned it on with the box or something, everything came out of sync. Same with source on my stereo, its a rotation with 1 button, not 4 buttons, 1 per source. So if the signal for the stereo is blocked, it misses it and comes out of sync.

We now just constantly have it on a mode with "TV POWER" "SKY POWER" "TV SOURCE" and "STEREO SOURCE".

[FunkyGibbon]

I wouldn't see it as a flaw at all. What is needed is to hide all the original remotes and not to let anyone touch the power buttons on the devices under the pain of death.

Note also, that the remote is not exclusively activity based, you can control the devices directly.

Take a day or t2 to get used to for sure, but once bedded in it is fine.

YMMV of course.

[illmonkey]

FunkyGibbon said:

I wouldn't see it as a flaw at all. What is needed is to hide all the original remotes and not to let anyone touch the power buttons on the devices under the pain of death.

Note also, that the remote is not exclusively activity based, you can control the devices directly.

Take a day or t2 to get used to for sure, but once bedded in it is fine.

YMMV of course.

We'll agree to disagree. The fact that you can manually override the power/source/volume/settings with the same remote shows that its a flaw. Someone walking past the remote blocking the signal to the stereo means your out of sync, you've then got to navigate to the individual device settings on the remote and put them right, or dig out the original remote.

Every device should have a command per toggle, even if hidden. So my stereo remote only has one button for source, but a universal remote can be programmed to have Source1, Source2 etc. That way, nothing would get out of sync. Try getting every manufacture to adapt this...

Its a great bit of kit, in the right circumstances, with manufactures adopting a 'standard' and its worth every penny. But £80 for what is just collating 4 remote with a poor battery life is too much

[t84]

FunkyGibbon said:

I've a logitech harmony one (I know outside your budget of £40) and it is great. I think the only major difference is the one has a touch screen and the 555 has real buttons (which some reviewers prefer to be honest).

If you take you time setting the thing up with the on-line tool it will be great. The hide the other remotes from other users...

Only thing to watch is keep the old remotes in a box somewhere once setup. It works by remembering the state (on/off/channel/input etc) of the devices - so if you turn a device off with the device remote - the harmony will still think it is on and get confused. If you see what I mean.

Other than that - great pieces of kit.

Is that the only difference?

[FunkyGibbon]

t84 said:

FunkyGibbon said:

I've a logitech harmony one (I know outside your budget of £40) and it is great. I think the only major difference is the one has a touch screen and the 555 has real buttons (which some reviewers prefer to be honest).

If you take you time setting the thing up with the on-line tool it will be great. The hide the other remotes from other users...

Only thing to watch is keep the old remotes in a box somewhere once setup. It works by remembering the state (on/off/channel/input etc) of the devices - so if you turn a device off with the device remote - the harmony will still think it is on and get confused. If you see what I mean.

Other than that - great pieces of kit.

Is that the only difference?

Harmony 1 has docking cradle for recharging batteries and colour touchscreen where you can embed icons of favourite channels.

But I think that is it. From logitech website 1 vs 600 (which seems the new 550):

how they compare

[dalos260]

The main reason I chose the 555 ove the 'one' is that the 555 has actual buttons for the red-green-blue-yellow rather than somewhere within the touch screen pages. I use Teletext a lot, so I needed that.

Also, although you would expect the charging/cradle of the 'one' to be a better feature, the battery doesn't last all that long really. The 555 uses normal alkalines which I've only just replaced after nearly a year of use. So for me, that's a lot better.

In summary, it's excellent, and a good choice.

[FunkyGibbon]

So OP how are you getting on with your new remote?

[Plotloss]

illmonkey said:

FunkyGibbon said:

You'll be fine if you make a note of all the settings on each bit of kit you want for each activity.

e.g. Watching Sky:

TV on and set to HDMI1
Sky Box On
Amp on and set to input D-TV

DVD:

Tv on and set to HDM12
DVD on

etc - and adjust for your own circumstances with your kit.

Then connect the remote to a PC or laptop (helps if PC or laptop are in the room you are setting up) and follow the on-screen instructions on how to set up activities.

Edited by FunkyGibbon on Wednesday 28th April 12:00

You see, this is the flaw in the remote.

It isnt "Sky remote ON" its "Sky remote Power", so if someones turned it on with the box or something, everything came out of sync. Same with source on my stereo, its a rotation with 1 button, not 4 buttons, 1 per source. So if the signal for the stereo is blocked, it misses it and comes out of sync.

We now just constantly have it on a mode with "TV POWER" "SKY POWER" "TV SOURCE" and "STEREO SOURCE".

Use the Sky button for Power On and the Power button for Power Off.

If you have to us IR...

[t84]

So the only difference between the 555 and One is the Touchscreen and the Dock?

[illmonkey]

Plotloss said:

illmonkey said:

FunkyGibbon said:

You'll be fine if you make a note of all the settings on each bit of kit you want for each activity.

e.g. Watching Sky:

TV on and set to HDMI1
Sky Box On
Amp on and set to input D-TV

DVD:

Tv on and set to HDM12
DVD on

etc - and adjust for your own circumstances with your kit.

Then connect the remote to a PC or laptop (helps if PC or laptop are in the room you are setting up) and follow the on-screen instructions on how to set up activities.

Edited by FunkyGibbon on Wednesday 28th April 12:00

You see, this is the flaw in the remote.

It isnt "Sky remote ON" its "Sky remote Power", so if someones turned it on with the box or something, everything came out of sync. Same with source on my stereo, its a rotation with 1 button, not 4 buttons, 1 per source. So if the signal for the stereo is blocked, it misses it and comes out of sync.

We now just constantly have it on a mode with "TV POWER" "SKY POWER" "TV SOURCE" and "STEREO SOURCE".

Use the Sky button for Power On and the Power button for Power Off.

If you have to us IR...

If I 'have to use IR', other options are?

[Plotloss]

For control of Skyboxes, as they're far too much of a pain in the arse for my liking as generally everything we do has at least 3 HD boxes we use an RS232>Injected IR converter.

Then we just dump RS232 commands into it.

Far neater all things considered but it does mandate a remote thats a bit more manly than anything in the Logitech range.