And when setting up the activities, it'll often make strange choices as to what to put on the touch screen and it will leave out vital functions.īut if you really take the time, you can set up the touch screen and hard buttons beautifully! I like to tinker, so this is ok with me. If you RELY on the software to set up this remote, it's going to be a pain! It'll leave a lot of hard buttons blank and it will just dump all of the various controls in alphabetical order onto the touch screen. After CAREFUL setup, I have every control mapped out between the hard buttons and the highly configurable touch screen in a way that makes sense! This is where I think a lot of the detractors of this remote find it to be less than satisfactory. But switching between it all manually would be darn near impossible for a lot of my guests! So the activities setup with the Harmony One really does the trick! Hit the activities button, select what they want to do and it all swtiches for them - fantastic! Thankfully, the receiver takes EVERYTHING and shoots out just one HDMI cable to my TV. The PS3 and Xbox360 take up the remaining two HDMI inputs on the receiver. That feeds one input of my Onkyo TX-SR705 receiver. With so many HDMI devices, I have 4 of them going into a Monoprice HDMI switch. I've got a CD changer, iPod dock, Oppo DVD/SACD/DVD-Audio player, HD-DVD player, Blu-ray player, Cable HD-DRV and all three gaming systems (PS3, Xbox360 and Wii). My setup isn't super complicated, but it is definitely too complicated for anyone who does not know A/V well. Activities really do make things a breeze for visitors to use this remote. I had avoided Harmony remotes prior to The One because of the small and confusing hard button layout, but The One gets it darn near perfect IMO. I pretty much have zero complaints about the hard buttons. The buttons are well shaped, well sized, easy to find and easy to click. I was previously using a URC MX-500, which functioned very very well, but not everyone was able to understand it without assistance. Mostly, I entertain a fair bit and I wanted a remote that anyone could pick up, understand and operate. I purchased a Harmony One several months ago and I've been happy with it, though I do not think it is flawless. This definitely isn't the end all be all remote, but you can find it for around $200 or less, so even at that price point it's still not cheap, but it's a nice remote and definitely can simplify the process of using your gear. I'm glad I waited for so long to get this, otherwise I would probably have a Harmony 880 and been a bit dissapointed after spending that much money, but with the harmony one, I feel that everything is in the right place, the remote feels wonderful in my hand, is pretty easy to program, and a rechargeable battery is just icing on the cake. It's still expensive, but it does everything I need it to, and with the addition of a Nyko Blu Wave IR receiver, I can use the harmony one to control my PS3, but can't actually turn it on, but can do everything else but eject a disc with the remote like you can with the blue tooth PS3 remote. I was very leary of getting a universal remote, but since I found this one on sale, and had a coupon and gift card I bought it only to be very pleasantly surprised at how goot it actually was. Excellent review, and I concur with everything said about it.
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