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
The Hub
The other piece that comes in the box is the Harmony Hub. Measuring 103.3 mm wide by 124.7 mm deep, and 26.5 mm high (4.07 x 4.91 x 1.05 inches), the hub is meant to be placed with the A/V equipment, whether out in the open or hidden away. The Hub communicates with the remote over RF, so it doesn’t need any line of sight in order to operate. It features built-in IR blasters, so the hub will output the IR signal from itself, allowing it to control most devices in line of sight. If you tuck the Hub away, or leave it out but tuck other equipment away, it also comes with two IR blasters on 2.54 m (8.3 ft) cables, so you can control devices outside of line of site as well.
The Hub is really the piece of the puzzle that transforms the Harmony Elite from just a good remote control, to a whole home automation device. The ability to control devices over Wi-FI and Bluetooth opens up far more control that just IR would ever have given you, and removes the need for line of sight as well. Logitech experimented with this on older Harmony remotes which featured Z-Wave RF support, but the Harmony Hub surpasses these in pretty much every way.
Thanks to the inclusion of IP control, Harmony can now support devices in the IoT world. It doesn’t offer fully customizable IP control, like it does for IR, so it likely won’t replace the fully custom solutions for professionals, but it will control lighting, heating, and more. For instance, you can have a Good Night activity that automatically dims the lights and sets a Nest/Honeywell/Ecobee thermostat to a lower setting. You can adjust the temperature of hot water on a Wi-Fi enabled water heater from Rheem. You can adjust lighting colors on Hue lights based on activities. You can even lower the shades, or drop a projection screen if needed. Harmony can even mute your entertainment if your Nest Protect senses smoke or carbon monoxide.
If you are thinking of getting into home automation, be aware that the Harmony Hub won’t control everything out there, but it does support most of the major brands. To check if your own devices, or those you are looking at purchasing, are supported, it would be best to check out the Harmony Compatibility listing on their site.
Even if you aren’t into home automation, the addition of the Hub gives you additional benefits like no longer needing to point the remote at anything, as well as controlling devices like a Roku over IP for additional ease of use, and more reliable control. It also fixes something that has been the one thorn in the side of Harmony since the beginning, which is updating the remote itself.
The App
The Hub allows you to use the Harmony app on your smartphone. Although this will give the same functionality of the remote through your phone, I’ve already mentioned why touchscreens aren’t ideal for this. A smartphone adds to the disappointment by not always being powered on, unlocked, or having the remote open, meaning if you hear the phone ring and need to mute your entertainment, it’s a challenge to deal with. But the Harmony App adds more than just remote control capabilities with the hub. It also allows you to completely configure the remote as well.
The old Harmony software required you to hook the remote up to a PC with a USB cable in order to program it. The software was clunky, awkward, and slow, and sometimes there would be little things you wanted to change on your Harmony, such as what a certain button does, and you’d end up putting it off because it was too much work.
The Harmony App changes all of this. You can now completely configure the system with a smartphone, or PC, or both. The app works well for adding and adjusting activities, although I do prefer to do that on a PC still, but the app makes it almost trivial to update the remote. If you need to switch Fast Forward and Skip, you can just fire up the app on your phone and quickly make the change. The phone talks to the Hub, and the remote then syncs with the Hub to take any changes. This one change makes it infinitely easier to update the remote.
This does not preclude you from using the PC software, and in fact the PC update mechanism is also now improved, because you can make any changes you want, and then just sync your remote to the hub, rather than have to do it over USB.
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mjeffer - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
I've had a phone or two that had integrated IR blasters. While they work, most of the apps for them were clunky at best and tactile buttons are just so much better when you want to quickly grab the remote and change the channel or volume.SpartanJet - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
I bought the Elite and love it, though if I had to do it again I'd opt for the hub and cheap remote option as I use the iphone app almost 100% of the time. Though if I was an ADroid user (like the remote tablet that came with my TV) I'd have stuck with Elite as the ADroid Harmony app constantly crashes or loses connection with the hub...ADroid being ADroid I guess.mjeffer - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
"Perhaps I’m dating myself, but the television in my house when I was young required the viewer to get up and change channels manually."As a kid, I remember we had a VCR with this fancy new "remote". It was attached to the VCR with a long cord that plugged into the front of it that you had to drag across the room and risk tripping anyone who wanted to walk by.
Makaveli - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
As a current Harmony One user I like the upgrades however the price is a non starter. For an upgrade from a perfectly working remote its just too much. I would consider it at $199.CalifLove00 - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
This is a great product. I will say like most here, the cost the item is high when you think of it as just a remote. That said, this is an item that likely gets used every single day. IF you find it useful, it is likely because it is saving you from having to use multiple remotes EVERY day. When put in perspective, the benefit outweighs the cost. Should it be cheaper - yes, even $200 is fair. BUT, given it proves it's usefulness more than any other competing product (IMHO) at the end of the day, it's worth every penny.ALL that said, I would like to see Logitech offer better batteries. For whatever reason, EVERY single Harmony device I've had has had its battery die extremely early in the product life. While my elite bat has not died out right, it's life has fallen way off, The thing cannot stay off the charger longer than a days use without needing to be recharged.
Houdani - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
I have an Ultimate, and agree that placing the buttons north of the screen was a rubbish decision. In order to counteract their awkward placement, I opted to reprogram the channel up/down buttons to behave as skip forward/back buttons instead. From a usability standpoint I think this is better overall. I would do the same thing with an Elite.As a side benefit, this remapping of the buttons counts as a page up/down when browsing the channel listing.
As for the number buttons; I imagine folks mainly use them to type in their favorite stations. As an alternate, they can simply populate their screen with direct links to all of their favorite stations (including the logo for each station). Works great.
melgross - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
I've got several issues with this review, but I just want to mention an error here.The Harmony does not have a knowledge of state. What it has is a knowledge of whatever setting it has made. There really isn't any feedback to the unit as to real time state. That's why, if you make a manual change to any basic setting also available on the Harmony, it isn't aware of it.
A knowledge of state is when a device is updated as to the state of the devices it's being used with, regardless of whether the device has been used to change those settings. The Harmony has none of that knowledge, and it does lead to problems.
I've tried a number of their devices over the years, and I stopped using all of them after a short period of time. A problem is that the limitations on Harmony devices can exceed its usefulness. Any adjustments to the system often require a manufacturers remote to accomplish. As the remote has no idea of what you're doing, you need to reprogram it for these changes.
When someone sits down and grabs a different remote, which you can't always remove because there is some function or other the Harmony doesn't do properly, or at all, everything is thrown out of wack. The problem is that not every family member is going to understand how these remotes work, and will prefer to grasp the tv control instead. The works with kids, and even my wife.
Another problem comes when you have several ways to do basically the same thing. You need to make multiple set-ups for that which becomes clumsy, particularly since the screen doesn't allow good descriptions of functions. have three different ways to watch a movie? Three ways to watch Tv shows, music? That's a problem.
Yes, it can be done, but most people will find it a hair pulling problem. I'm not happy about it myself.
Makaveli - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
Some good points there.The easiest fix for the wife and kids is to hide those old remotes so everyone is forced to use the harmony. This way no can change state because there are no remotes to do so. My girlfriend is pretty bad with technology and doing this forced her to learn to use the Harmony and now she is fine with it.
melgross - Tuesday, February 14, 2017 - link
Sure, until they go and push a button on an a/v device, and leave it that way.Makaveli - Thursday, February 16, 2017 - link
Time to invest in locked cabinets :)