Logitech Harmony 676 Universal Remote Control
by Logitech
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List Price: Our Price: $119.98 You Save: $80.01 (40%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $48.25 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Logitech Harmony 676 Universal Remote Control
Customer Review: A little confusing, but very good
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm a computer geek for a living, and I was impressed with the programming interface for this remote. But I did not notice that the silver ring around the round "OK" button was actually a 4-direction switch that is by default assigned the "Direction Up", Direction Down, Direction Right and Direction Left commands used to navigate through menus. Most of the other remotes in this series have more obvious buttons around the OK button labelled with arrows. I spent a lot of time programming other buttons to handle the direction commands. It's great that it's possible to do that, but I wondered whether this model is being phased out because of the strange direction button design. I don't see the model in most stores.
Anyway, I only discovered the use of the silver ring via email contact with the Logitech customer support staff. It took them several days to get back, but it did answer my confusion. It would help if they would add a button diagram somewhere. So now I've been able to program just about everything. I've got a complicated setup, with 5 activities: watch normal (analog) TV, watch the digital set-top box TV, watch Replay DVR, play DVD movies, and listen to CDs. I attached 3 of the activities to 3 of the 4 activity buttons. The 4th activity button is actually not programmable... it displays more activities in the remote's display.
After a lot of fiddling, I've got the thing set up so my wife can figure it out. Most stuff is just one activity button press to turn on and configure everything, and one power button press to turn it all off. It used to require 2 or 3 remotes to to control each activity, in specific order. Some of those remotes were supposedly "universal", but I couldn't get any of them to handle everything. So the Harmony 676 is great. THe only thing it can't control power on is our Motorola set-top digital box (from Time Warner cable), but I decided to just leave that on all the time. I'm now very happy with the remote, and recommend it, with the sole proviso that people uncomfortable with a computer could have a very hard time with it. Of course, they can just get their grandkids to program it for them.
Customer Review: Great Remote - Nothing in the price range compares
Summary: 5 Stars
I had been looking for a harmony for a while, but didn't want to spend a ton of money on one. I considered a refurbished 880, but decided i didn't really like the button layout and didn't really think a color screen was all that important. Bling-tastic? Yes. Important? No. Then i found the 676 for about 1/3 the price of a refurbished 880 and jumped on it.
The button layout is perfect for a DVR, it works great with the DirecTv DVR, and the soft rubber buttons have a nice tactile feeling. The remote isn't heavy, but its not too lite, and it fits my hand nicely. I hate remotes that require you to reposition them to reach all the buttons you want, and the 676 has a great layout to avoid this irritation. The back of the remote is formed with two grooves that allow you to keep the remote steady in hand while you stretch for the buttons on the upper end of the remote.
After reading some reviews i was prepared for a somewhat long and tedious set up, but i was pleasantly surprised when it didn't take very long and it wasn't very difficult. I found the software and setup very intuitive and easy to use.
Some of my favorite features are: the ability to customize (and label) the buttons next to the LCD, the ability to bring up a list of favorite channels on the remote's LCD, and the help button.
Overall I am pretty impressed with this remote, especially at less than fifty dollars shipped.
About the only con that i can think of is that the LCD doest seem to turn off to save battery life, or at least i haven't found the option that does this. The back-light for the buttons shuts off, but the LCD appears to stay on all the time. The batteries would probably last longer if the screen turned completely off after a while, but i guess thats why i use rechargeable batteries.
I feel this is definitely the best remote out there in this price range.
+A
Customer Review: Now my wife can turn everything on with one button!
Summary: 5 Stars
I had to use 3 remotes just to watch tv, 4 if I wanted to watch a DVD. Now it only takes one. I just loaded the software on my laptop, plugged in the remote with the included USB cable, and followed the steps with the easy to use step by step setup wizard.
The software runs on Mac or Windows, I used a Mac. After you're done programming it, you can create activities that will then only require 1 button press in order to use. For example, if you want to watch tv, just press the button with the tv logo on it. The receiver, tv and cable box all turn on and are set to the correct settings. Say I want to watch a movie, just press the movie button. The DVD player, TV and receiver all turn on. What if the tv was already on, so pressing that button turned it off? Just press the Help button. It will ask you if the tv is on, answer no, it will turn it back on. Pretty cool.
Also, when the remote is in the mode for watching TV and you have your tv, receiver and cable box on, the volume controls on the remote run the receiver, the channel buttons run the cable box, etc. It knows which button should be controlling which device. That is also something you can program in the software. If it doesn't get something right, you can edit what it should do. Here's another bonus, if for some reason you have some special buttons on a remote that it didn't pick up, you can make the Harmony learn then. While you have it plugged into the computer, it will ask you to push a certain button on the other remote, when you push it it will tell you if it received it or not, then it will move on to the next one. No more guessing.
You could spend more money and get fancy touch screen remotes, but this little guy couldn't be easier. It even comes with four different color face plates to change the look of the remote.
Customer Review: If you are a geek obsessed with tweaking needless things, move on...
Summary: 5 Stars
...else, this is a FABULOUS remote. I have a home theater I used for TV on cable and satelite with a DVR, DVDs, radio and CDs. I have a Rotel AV receiver that has a ton of inputs and outputs. I have bought and returned about 5 remotes over the past two months, but this one is a keeper.
You see, I am a total geek. I love to waste my life away tweaking dumb little things that are really quite useless, but I find it fun. Well, with this remote I discovered that something that just works is a good thing. Sure, I WISH I could go nuts with this and program various macros (like a macro to switch between DTS and Dolby Pro Logic between DVD and TV...), but I don't NEED to do any of this! It is a sickness people!!! Please realize this when you read reviews where someone has their BVDs all in a bunch over "the inability to program macros for multiple tone settings based on the source component..." If you are one of those geeks, go ahead and get something else, but if you want the best out of the box up and running universal remote that everyone in your family can use without a training session, this is IT!
P.S. Any review who said the set up was lengthy must be a chipmunk or a humming bird. Even though I had to update firmware and the client (don't worry, it does it all for you), I was up and running with all my devices in about 15 minutes. Afterward I had one problem with the wrong TV input (though I had set it correctly), but the Help feature fixed it in about 15 seconds.
So yea, 10 - 15 minutes vs DAYS of programming a Home Theater Master or Sony AV-3000 only to still come up short in simplicity? Your choice, but I did my best to warn you. Trust me, geeks won't like this because it makes needing to be a geek obsolete!
Customer Review: Harmony 676 remote is outstanding as is the Logitech customer service
Summary: 5 Stars
I am sold on the Logitech Harmony 676 remote control. The 676 works as advertised in totally simplifying using my Comcast DVR, LG DVD, Fisher VCR and Hitachi Plazma set. It is amazing that I can do everything with one remote vs. the old 4. The internet set up is easy but you may have initial set up problems depending on the complexity of your configuration. My Hitachi set has a very screwy 4 button access to various inputs. Once you select the input using one of 4 unique buttons (video, PC, NTSC, DTV) you then toggle through another layer of selections to get to your final set up (i.e. DVI for DVD or YPbCb for Hi Def). Using the internet to set up my remote was easy. However, using the standard set up the remote could not automatically toggle to the correct input to give me the one button access I wanted. So I called customer service. I am even more excited to report that Logitech's support was fantastic. It took about two hours on the phone with a "Real Customer Service Person" that helped diagnose the input uniqueness of my Hitachi set. The customer service person escallated my call to a supervisor who made suggested changes, then sent my problem to a programmer who (GET THIS!) programmed the commands online while I waited, updated my internet site configuration and waited while I downloaded the unique fix to my remote. The Logitech customer service person would not get off the phone until we tested it together, and made sure that my remote was a true "1 Button" set up as advertised. Yes it took a long time, but it was a tricky set up in order to automate 100% of my configuration. If your looking for a remote to do it all...this is the one and it has a great service department behind it to make sure you are satisfied!