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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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?