The Logitech Harmony Elite Experience: Ultimate Control
by Brett Howse on February 14, 2017 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Accessories
- Logitech
- Remote Control
- IoT
- Smart Home
- Harmony
No devices is perfect, and the Logitech Harmony Elite is no exception. Luckily, the downsides are pretty minor. The initial setup is a bit cumbersome, but once you get everything set up, it’s generally smooth sailing.
Really the one major hurdle when using any of the Harmony products is to understand that they have a knowledge of state. A Harmony can work very well if you use it, and only it, to control your devices. Harmony remotes have an understanding of what devices are turned on, what are turned off, and what inputs are selected, so if you use another device to control your equipment as well, it can cause some frustrations. If you’re watching TV, and turn it off by pressing the button, the Harmony remote is still going to think it’s on. If you then switch to an activity that doesn’t use the TV, the remote will send the TV a power signal, which may turn the TV back on. Some of this has been helped over the years by devices having both a power on and power off control, rather than just a toggle, but if you can get it into your mind to only control things with the Harmony, things will go smoother.
Logitech has thought of this, of course, and for a long time they have included a troubleshooting guide on the remote itself. On the less expensive remotes, it will just re-send the codes, but on the higher end models with displays, it will ask you questions like “is the TV on?” which you can step through to sort out most issues.
The point is, once you set up the Harmony, the other remotes really should be put away. If there’s some feature you need on them, set one of the buttons on the Harmony to do that, and your life will be easier. It may seem obvious to some, but for those coming from a per-device control world, it can be a bit jarring to go from a remote per-device, to a Harmony, especially with the activities.
Multi-Touch
Logitech includes some multi-touch features in their smartphone app, and either someone had some time on their hands, or someone just made a poor decision, but they decided to port the multi-touch features into the Harmony Elite. You can drop an on-screen shade down over the display, and then use several different gestures to use the remote.
Multi-touch in the smartphone app is almost identical to the on-remote gesture support
Swipe up can be volume up, and swipe up and hold could be change channel up, and you can tap, double tap, and more. It’s impressive in the fact that it exists, but there is no extra functionality added to the remote by being able to do the same things that the remote buttons can do, but with gestures. In fact, it’s kind of silly. Why would you draw down an on-screen shade, then use a gesture to adjust the volume, when you could just use the volume button?
Luckily this feature is easily not used, and who knows, maybe there is one or two people in the world who would buy a remote and then use gestures on it instead of just using the buttons.
Battery Life
The final sore point on the Harmony Elite is the battery life. Logitech has included rechargeable batteries in the higher end models for some time, and the Harmony Elite features a Li-Ion battery, and charging stand. Thanks to the color display, and every button on the remote being backlit, there is more power draw than a standard remote.
Normally we would run extensive testing on battery life, but a remote is not a laptop, and such tests would be difficult to say the least. From my experience, the remote lasts four or five days before it needs to be charged, which is not bad, but it is definitely worse than the last two Harmony remotes I have owned.
If you are organized enough to always but the remote in the charging stand before bed, you will just never run into issues with the battery, but if you are, well let’s say “less organized” like in my house, the remote ends up sitting out for days at a time. I’ve not run into a situation where the remote was ever dead, but just be aware that it does need to be charged every few days.
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Azethoth - Monday, February 20, 2017 - link
Teach them how to use the help button then.I had to teach my Mom that one and now she can fix her own issues.
kpb321 - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
Devices certainly can get out of sync but to some extent it depends on your devices and what commands they support. If your devices support discrete codes for the major things you do like switch the input and turn off/on then if you set it up correctly then it doesn't really matter if things are "out of sync" because they still work. For example my receiver has discrete codes for turning off and on and for switching to a particular input. Switching to an input will also turn it on if it is off so it never suffers from out of sync issues. The biggest out of sync offenders seem to be TVs when you have to switch their inputs as discrete input codes seem to be much less common there.Unfortunately the one issue I haven't been able to figure out yet is that my harmony remote seems to be really slow sending the commands to multiple devices so my wife has problems not waiting long enough for all the commands to be sent. In that regard my previous universal remote with some simple macros actually worked better as it blasted the commands to the different devices very quickly.
schizoide - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
I strongly suggest the Harmony Smart Control over the Harmony Elite.https://smile.amazon.com/Logitech-Harmony-Control-... (not a referral link)
The main difference is the remote has no touchscreen. It's smaller, takes a coin battery, and the battery lasts for an ENTIRE YEAR.
The Harmony Smart Control also comes with the Harmony Hub so you get the same functionality. It's normally priced at $125, which is a bit over a third of the ridiculously expensive $300 Harmony Elite, but is frequently available factory refurb (essentially new) for $99, and just last week I saw a sale on slickdeals.net for $65.
Get the Smart Control. It's worth every penny. The Elite is overpriced and IMO actually offers an inferior experience as it needs to be constantly recharged.
archon810 - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
This. I have a Harmony Smart Control and 3 Home Control remotes, all purchased at around $100-130 each, and they do almost everything this Elite does, for 1/3 the price. Plus, no need to look down - everything can be done by touch.Logitech is insane for charging $300 for something that is completely unnecessary. It should be at $180 max. DOA otherwise.
alfredoh - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
This x1000. Not only is it fairly cheap at $125, but if/when the buttons on the remote break (or you lose the remote), you can buy JUST the remote for $30 and re-pair it with the existing hub in 10 seconds. I'm tempted to buy a few extra remote's for $30 just in case they stop selling the things cause they realize that people have caught on and aren't stupid enough to buy these fancy touch remote's for hundreds.ABR - Wednesday, February 15, 2017 - link
+1, just bought one in Europe, but I think it might be discontinued now? The size is really nice, I mean most of the time anyway you are using just volume, play/pause/next, and maybe channel change. Programmable buttons and, if needed, the app, cover the rest. Two minuses:- Requires a 2.4GHz network to set up, and every time to boot up. I mean, really? Solved by temporarily activating connection sharing from my smart phone, but a pain.
- Flaky sometimes, especially with sequences.
Guspaz - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
Two things that I'd like to know as a Harmony One user:1) Does it support macros, so that you can program the remote to navigate a menu? For example, my Harmony can turn "night mode" on and off on my soundbar, but this requires the macro to push something like "menu-down-down-right-down-down-right-menu". That's over the max length limit on the macro so I had to combine some into custom signals. I know Harmony dropped support for macros entirely at some point, do they support macros today?
2) The Harmony One is super slow at pushing individual buttons, making it very painful to use it to navigate an on-screen menu. Did they fix this in newer remotes?
schizoide - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
1) I know you can create macros with >20 discrete steps tied to activities, but haven't really played around beyond that. The software is very powerful so I expect it is possible to tie them to any button. But research it first, if you don't get any other responses.2) You can adjust timings in the harmony software down to tenths of a second.
OzzieGT - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
I'm using the much cheaper harmony companion with the most basic remote in my home theater. It works great. No need for a fancy touch screen remote, the basic remote does what I need and if I need more advanced functionality I just load up the app on my phone.pookguy88 - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
the thing I hate about the hub is it adds a delay whenever you press a button on the remote, can you opt to only use the remote to output IR?