Logitech Harmony remote Ultimate.

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#866591 26-Jul-2013 13:40

I have the Harmony Touch and i'm not sold on it. I had the 785 before this and really liked it.

The 785 had a motion sensor in the remote which lit it up when you moved it. The Touch doesn't have this so you have to touch the screen. After years of the 785 i'm still training myself to touch the Touch's screen but it's not as easy to do as the screen isn't within easy reach of my thumb.

The remote has a heavy butt. It's comfortable to hold the base but if you spend a lot of time pressing the play/pause buttons or using the touch screen it's not as ergonomic.

The play/pause/stop buttons are right at the top of the remote so I have to either use my second hand to press them or awkwardly rearrange it to reach them. I use these buttons the most after the direction keys so would be handier to be nearer the center of the remote.

Having no physical number keys has been a pain. Although it has meant i've got more Favourites set up which are a little easier to use at times.

The touch screen is good enough.

I've not used any of the gesture stuff but that's because I can't find any use for it.

Stu

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#866596 26-Jul-2013 13:50

Note that the cheaper models usually only support up to 8 devices. Nowhere near enough for me unfortunately.

People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

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#866602 26-Jul-2013 14:03

Disrespective: I have the Harmony Touch and i'm not sold on it. I had the 785 before this and really liked it.

The 785 had a motion sensor in the remote which lit it up when you moved it. The Touch doesn't have this so you have to touch the screen. After years of the 785 i'm still training myself to touch the Touch's screen but it's not as easy to do as the screen isn't within easy reach of my thumb.

The remote has a heavy butt. It's comfortable to hold the base but if you spend a lot of time pressing the play/pause buttons or using the touch screen it's not as ergonomic.

The play/pause/stop buttons are right at the top of the remote so I have to either use my second hand to press them or awkwardly rearrange it to reach them. I use these buttons the most after the direction keys so would be handier to be nearer the center of the remote.

Having no physical number keys has been a pain. Although it has meant i've got more Favourites set up which are a little easier to use at times.

The touch screen is good enough.

I've not used any of the gesture stuff but that's because I can't find any use for it.

The remote that comes with the Ultimate is a slgiht tweak to the original Touch I think. They have added a nub to the bottom that may help the ergonomics a bit?

Disrespective

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#866616 26-Jul-2013 14:16

bazzer: The remote that comes with the Ultimate is a slgiht tweak to the original Touch I think. They have added a nub to the bottom that may help the ergonomics a bit?

It does seem to look like it, doesn't it. I'd never paid that much attention to the Ultimate's specific design changes as it looked so similar from the front. That might help a little but will still have a heavy arse i suspect.

Dunnersfella

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#866819 26-Jul-2013 20:11

Thanks for the code, I've ordered my Ultimate... should be here some time next week.

bazzer

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#866824 26-Jul-2013 20:36

Disrespective:
bazzer: The remote that comes with the Ultimate is a slgiht tweak to the original Touch I think. They have added a nub to the bottom that may help the ergonomics a bit?
It does seem to look like it, doesn't it. I'd never paid that much attention to the Ultimate's specific design changes as it looked so similar from the front. That might help a little but will still have a heavy arse i suspect.

From another forum:
The remaining differences between a Harmony Touch + Hub vs a Harmony Ultimate will be the physical differences between the remotes themselves, such as:
-Tilt sensor
-Haptic touch screen feedback
-Backlighting of the Home and Favorites buttons above the touch screen
-Different grip design on the underside of the remote
-Darker paint on the underside of the remote
-Different labels on the Ch/PG and FF/Skip FW and REW/Skip Back buttons (although the dual function will be enabled, obviously the button labels will remain as is for Touch users)

Sounds good and I'll be picking mine up from Playtech tomorrow!

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#869628 31-Jul-2013 22:46

Well I've been playing with my Ultimate and so far, so good. It's working perfectly with MySky / TV / PS3... but I'm still tweaking it so it can work my Philips Hue setup and Plex. It should be easy to sync with Plex (I just need to tell my Mac it needs to pair with it I suspect), so all in all it's cool.

The Philips Hue system is pretty sweet though. I'm playing around with IFTTT as well as some third party apps for it, and happily, it has the thumbs up from the other half.

Jaxson

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#870334 1-Aug-2013 21:30

Dunnersfella: Well I've been playing with my Ultimate and so far, so good. It's working perfectly with MySky / TV / PS3... but I'm still tweaking it so it can work my Philips Hue setup and Plex. It should be easy to sync with Plex (I just need to tell my Mac it needs to pair with it I suspect), so all in all it's cool.

The Philips Hue system is pretty sweet though. I'm playing around with IFTTT as well as some third party apps for it, and happily, it has the thumbs up from the other half.

Thanks for the feedback.

PS3 working natively with no additional module?

bazzer

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#870495 2-Aug-2013 09:38

Jaxson:
Dunnersfella: Well I've been playing with my Ultimate and so far, so good. It's working perfectly with MySky / TV / PS3... but I'm still tweaking it so it can work my Philips Hue setup and Plex. It should be easy to sync with Plex (I just need to tell my Mac it needs to pair with it I suspect), so all in all it's cool.

The Philips Hue system is pretty sweet though. I'm playing around with IFTTT as well as some third party apps for it, and happily, it has the thumbs up from the other half.

Thanks for the feedback.

PS3 working natively with no additional module?

Yep. I just replaced my PS3 Adapter with the Hub and everything worked great. I didn't even need to use any of the IR blasters!

Edit: Saying that however, the PS3 does seem to take longer to respond to the "On" command than it used to. It's not a big deal but are you having the same experience Dunnersfella? I might switch the "On" command to one fo the other commands which seem to turn it on quicker.

Jaxson

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#870638 2-Aug-2013 12:49

bazzer: the PS3 does seem to take longer to respond to the "On" command than it used to.

Is the On command part of a group of commands within an activity?

Just wondering if it needs to be sent a bit earlier in the piece, as in perhaps it's waiting until another devices 'warm up' time has elapsed before it sends the PS3 On command, or something silly like that?

bazzer

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#870711 2-Aug-2013 13:43

Jaxson:
bazzer: the PS3 does seem to take longer to respond to the "On" command than it used to.

Is the On command part of a group of commands within an activity?
Just wondering if it needs to be sent a bit earlier in the piece, as in perhaps it's waiting until another devices 'warm up' time has elapsed before it sends the PS3 On command, or something silly like that?

This is even from the Device buttons so it's not that.

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#870989 2-Aug-2013 21:25

I have no issues with it being slow to load my PS3.
I've got it working PLEX perfectly via the MacMini, and my other half is now tweaking the 'swipe to fast forward' commands etc. Having presets for the Philips Hue system is quite cool, I'm still tweaking that to get lighting where I want it to be.

In regards to ergonomics, it simply doesn't sit in my hand as well as the Harmony One. The weighting / design doesn't really gel as well, and the finish on the back feels a little cheap.
Basically, I'm torn between both the Harmony One and the Ultimate... so we're currently using two remotes, to rule them all...

Asmodeus

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#871023 2-Aug-2013 23:14

khull: I have a Smart Control on order

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/harmony-remotes

Don't need a colour screen remote - the last harmony one I got was ridiculous having to charge every 5 days.

I'd rather use my phone screen to control + a complement remote because my phone always is handy and is charged daily anyway

Did you get this yet? The reviews on the Logitech site seems to mostly say it's a great idea but not really ready for prime time yet. How have you found it?

Dunnersfella

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#884568 26-Aug-2013 11:33

So here's an annoyance with the Harmony Ultimate, that puts it behind the Harmony One IMHO...

I have MySky as well as a UHF Freeview tuner on my TV, and I do find that it's handy to check out Sommett on Freeview from time to time.
Initially I set up "Watch TV' to look after the MySky side of things, I loaded in the channel logos etc etc, and I'm very happy with this, as I can load in 50 channels if I need.
However, today I went to load Freeview as my second 'Watch TV' activity... but it turns out you can only load one set of favourites, so no custom logos. Lame.
I have preset the remote to immediately go to channel 14 (Sommett), but it's a poor solution in my books. Has anyone else found a way around this?

bazzer

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#884680 26-Aug-2013 13:45

I don't watch any TV live so I haven't set up the Favourites yet, no point really. So the Favourites page (that displays on every activity etc) can only be set up to use one activity?

That's a shame, but (obviously) not a deal breaker for me given all the other benefits of the hub.

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