Anyone have the Harmony remotes?

[falchulk]

http://www.harmonyremote.com

Looks great....almost want to buy one right now.

[gplasky]

I have the H659 and love it. I actually had their very first model and had offers to upgrade from one model to the other. Went thru 3 of them. Received $100 credit by sending the old one back. I don't think they do that anymore. Contemplating getting the H688. Just love it. Did you also notice Logitech just recently bought them? Also check out newegg.com. They had the H688 for about $60.00 cheaper than the manufacturer.

Gerry

[justme]

I'm about 2 seconds away from purchasing the 688. I had and returned the 659, I ended up going with an MX500. I loved the 659's feel and use, but the transport(FF,RW,etc) keys placement at the bottom became an issue. With the 688's new layout this is not a problem. My only concern is the center nav pad. I worry about how easily you could hit another adjacent button or if it's hard to hit the select without hitting a direction key.

Unfortunately, I can't use my experience with the 659 as a guide, since this area was seperate keys on the 659 but... I have a very similiar(seems a little larger) navpad on my MX500 and I've yet to hit a miskey. However I'd love to hear from a 688 user as those channel and volume keys seem awfully close to the Navpad. Do any 688 users have any issues with the Navpad correctly detecing direction/select? Also have you ever accidently hit an adjacent key when using the navpad? I'd say my finger's are fairly small for a guy. Still slightly, larger than most women or at least my wifes', if this info helps.

Did you also notice Logitech just recently bought them?

I'd consider this a good thing. The one area that always bothered me was the internet based setup. While it has many advantages, they should allow a backup on your computer at the very least. I really feel the should develop a standalone app for people who don't want to be tied to the company(even though their reputation is excellent). I hope Logitech keeps up to the same high standards.

PS:Also for price, Buy.com seems to offer unadvertised one day deals on the 688 every now and then. They had the silver(688S) for ~$150 with free shipping. However I will note that I did once have to despute a charge with Buy.com to get them to do the right thing. My package was mis-shipped and they were nearly impossible to reach and get answers from. NewEgg has never been anything, but a good experience for me. However I could be an abnormality. YMMV EDIT:It wasn't an abnormality. My personal opinion is to stay very far away from Buy.com

PPS:Here's the link to the silver(688S) at NewEgg. It's $159 right now with free Fedex shipping. The black 688b is only $150 with the same shipping deal.

/justme

[justme]

Well, it turns out my wife just ordered me a Hamony SST-688S from buy.com. I guess she got tired of me talking about the 688. If I'd of know... I'd of told her to order it somewhere else, due to my past experience with Buy.com. But she did use a promotional coupon and sale to get it for $141, including shipping. Supposedly we'll also get a $25 cash back coupon, but I have no idea what that's about. I'll have to look into what she signed up for.

Anyway, it's ordered and should be here within the week. So I'll let you know how it works then. To be honest I think she ordered it for herself, or with the hope that she will at least get my MX500. If I/she like the 688S then I'll probably get another one. If I don't like it I'll return or sell it and get her, her own MX500 instead.

/justme

[justme]

Well suprise(sarcasm). Buy.com says it shipped the Harmony on Monday, but UPS says(I called) all it got was billing info. Well so far all I've gotten from Buy.com is a headache. It's not so much me, as I was unfortunately expecting something like this. It's that my wife now feels like she messed up, and that really upsets me.

If things aren't straightened out by Monday... My Credit Card company desputing buy.com's charge will be the least of their worries. I'll take every legal, public, etc option I have to cause them 10X the grief they've given me. You'd think giving someone almost $150 would motivate them. Well it's certianly motivating me.

PS:If I ever get a Harmony 688 from where ever, I'll let you know what I think of it.

/justme

Edit/update:Well I've had to despute the charges as Buy.com is MIA as far as all contact, so far. The reason I've chosen to despute now(rather than Monday as planned) is that their site for my account now claims my order is completed(I think that's the word they used). This means they think they've shipped it and I've recieved it. I know this not to be true, and UPS has still to get anything more than a billing invoice from Buy.com. So I'm desputing and I just ordered a SST-688 from NewEgg.com. Thank God credit cards will step in when there is this type of behavior.

[justme]

OK, thanks to NewEgg.com(I'm still fighting Buy.com) I finally have a 688 in my actual hands. First off I'll say that it is remarkably smaller tham my URC's MX500. I looked at all the dimension specs before purchase, but actually holding both side by side it's very obvious. I love the shape of the 688 and it's very lite and well balanced for the way I hold it. I love the two identions in the back, they make it easy to hold the remote lower for normal use and then shift my hand higher to access the LCD buttons.

Now for the first thing I noticed I didn't like. The MX500 has this really great skin. It's smooth to the touch but any slight pressure and it takes on a very good grip. This is one of my favorite things about the MX500. Well the 688, doesn't have a very good grip to my feel. It's nothing poor or abnormal, it's just dissappointing after using the MX for soo long. Hopefully time will make this much less of an issue.

The second thing I noticed was that the buttons of the 688 have a very distinctive click indicating they've been pressed. The buttons tend to compress at first and then suddenly enough pressure is reached to trigger the switch and you get the click. I personally prefer a smoother/quieter(or totally quiet) button. Speaking of the buttons they are made of a rubber like substance and give you subtitle nonvisual feedback about which button you're on. They do this by having a slightly raised pattern(varies from button to button) on the top of the button. Another comparision to the MX500 is that the buttons on it(MX500) are nice and smooth, but not too slick to the touch. The 688's button almost literally grab your finger(a little too much maybe). It's a small detail and I wonder if it's meant to counter the 688's skin, being so smooth and near frictionless.

My next concern has to do with the nav pad. Well I didn't need to worry about hitting any adjacent buttons when using the nav pad. This turned out to not be an issue, despite the smaller size of the 688's nav pad compared to the MX500's. This was a very welcome and pleasant thing to discover as this was one of my biggest concerns prior to purchase. The center select/enter button is a seperate key from the 688's round nav pad, and hitting select accidentally while using the Nav pad seems like it would be very difficult. However the 688's select/enter button is differant from every other rubber button on the remote. It is super grabby to the touch. This sometimes makes it difficult to gently slide my thumb from the Nav wheel's top to bottom. I'm actually going to see if I can find someway to make this button feel slicker, without effecting the grip of the navwheel.

The last thing about the nav pad is that it is basically a thin circle of plastic(not solid from side to side, due to the seperate select button). I understand this was likely done to avoid accidentally pressing the select/enter button. But it could be an issue in that the circle is so thin it may cause your fingers to get sore with extended use. This combined with the supper grip select in the center, makes me wonder if I may get slight caluses with longterm use. Time will tell.

Oh one more thing about the buttons. The 6(3 on each side) ones next to the LCD require too much pressure to activate, IMO. They tend to not accept the input if pushed strait down, as the remotes case get's in the way of aplying enough pressure. This can be gotten around by pressing them at a diagonal(different direction for each side) towards the remotes center. I believe this may be related to the fact that they(each group of 3) are all formed from one piece of connected rubber. This is another area I'm going to look into seeing if I can change. I believe opening the remote(will void warranty) and using an exacto to seperate them into 3 seperate buttons will solve this issue. I'm gussing(from my days as a QC manager) they made them from one piece of rubber to help prevent debris getting into the area near the LCD. I'll wait a while(things often soften up with extended use) and read around(online) about what others have done.

This first really big positive thing I noticed, was that the 688 has an execellent blue(not greenish blue like on many(MX500) remotes) backlight. This backlight is very pleasant to the eye and not harsh in total darkness. It is also easier to read the LCD of the 688, then it is to read the LCD of my MX500. The LCD/light on the MX500 can cause some of the text/letters to get washed out, particularly if used if lower(but not dark) lighting conditions.

Please do not think that the 688 is a poor remote, because I listed many more "bad" things than "positive". The fact that I listed so few is very good. I've gone thru many a highend remote in my time(Memorex,Sony,MX500) and now tend to only really notice the things that bother me. The 688 is an excellant remote with a near perfect button layout. The size and weight are incredible compared to some of my previous remotes. They managed to squeeze all the functionality of my much larger MX500 down to a near perfect smaller size. I can still easily hit all the main buttons and not accidentally press a neighbor. Any smaller and this may have been an issue. The layout is very intuitive and actually gives me more hard(nonLCD related) buttons than my MX500 does. It will take me a while to make the new layout second nature, but I'm sure that I'll be very happy with this purchase.

If I notice anything glaringily good or bad I'll update this post. If I can just adjust the friction of the select/enter button and the amount of pressure needed to activate the LCD buttons, it will be the perfect remote. At least for a year or two, when a newer/better remote comes out.

Just to try and summarize. The 688 is near perfect, but has a few flaws. If you're in the market for a light remote with lots of hard(nonLCD) buttons then I'd get the 688. If you have a MX500/700 and don't really need another remote then don't worry about it. There will never be a perfect remote, the past 15 years have taught me that. So don't just dump your current remote, unless you have good cause. If I needed to buy a new remote(for general AV and PVR use) but had all my current knowledge... I'd probably lean slightly towards the MX500. But much of that is the $50 avarege price diffence between the 2(the MX500 can easily be found for $100). I imagine in a month or 2 I'd say get a 688, you'll be very happy with it.

Hope this helps somebody,
justme

[sleight42]

Any luck getting it working with Sage? I bought a Harmony remote a while ago but, admittedly, it hasn't seen much use as the fiance would certainly get lost if the state of the system got the slightest bit out of sync with the remote.

[justme]

Not yet, but I haven't tried it out on Sage. I'm sure it will work fine since I use a Tivo remote to control SageTV right now. I plan to just use the Tivo's(switch position2) codes for the Harmony and Sage control. This is what I did with the MX500. Sorry about the lack of direct Sage related feedback, I've been a little busy with personal matters recently. As soon as I get it all set up and start using it with SageTV. I'll let you know how it works out.

To be quite honest, I plan on bypassing most(all?) of the Harmony's State monitoring functions. They just aren't practical in a multi-user/multiremote environment. I really bought it because of it's size, layout and ergonomics. I've already talked to Harmony and they've told me how having two(I plan to get my wife one if it works out) would lead to the remote getting out of sync. So I explained what I planned to do and they assured me I could use the remote in that manner.ie like a standard Universal remote. Sage is just one peice in my AV setup, but I admit getting a remote that had excellent PVR support was a giant factor in the Hamony's(and even the MX500s) purchase.

I'll report back, once everything is setup and tested out. I'll also do a little testing using the state technology so I can give you some fedback on that part of the remote. I want to have every tuned perfectly before I pass it over the the wife(she's used to the MX500). She's very savy technically(more so than many women), but is also a very demanding(in a good way) consumer. If it makes both of us happy then I think it could make anyone happy.

/justme