Logitech Harmony 880 LCD Remote Control

Handheld remote controls are, like the VCR and its derivatives, something our kids take for granted but something that came into many of our lives when we reached adulthood. I know this dates me (doesn't everything now?), but there was a time when, if you wanted to change channels or adjust the sound on your TV, you had to physically get up out of your chair and walk to the TV set and adjust its controls by hand. Can you imagine anything so primitive? But yet, back in the dawn of time that's what we had to do, young people of today.

My Dad hated to listen to commercials with all their inane yakity-yak. Since we didn't have remote controls with mute buttons back then, he strung a 2-stranded wire around the walls of the living room, down on the floor beside the coving, from the speaker on the TV to a little switch on the arm of his easy chair. The wires were soldered to the contacts on the TV speaker in such a way that the switch made the speaker give sound or be silent. When my Dad wanted to mute an annoying commercial's sound, he clicked his switch off and we had blessed silence until the show came back and he clicked the sound on again. My Dad was ahead of his time, at least when it came to taking control of that function of the TV.

Eventually, infrared-enabled remote controls for TVs arrived, sometime in the 1960s I think. At first they were big and clunky and only did the on-off and the channels and the sound, but that was the Dawn of the Remote Age. As time progressed, buttons were added for things like muting, sleep timing, and other things.

The (wireless) remote was handy, and it became a symbol of superior power for the user- whoever had the remote was "king of the TV", which could be a very big deal in certain environments. In some families big fights have happened because of who had the remote, and I suspect that people have actually been killed because they were fighting over the remote.

One of the problems with remotes my me-and-my-wife family discovered, when we had small children, was that the kids would use the remote when we parents weren't around and carry it off to their bedroom with them or stuff it down between the cushions of the sofa, so that when we wanted it it was lost. I actually taped a 6-foot flourescent ribbon to our TV remote so that we could track it down if it got hidden in the cushions, and later put a (more discreet) "finder beeper" button on another remote so we could track it. If I had small kids today I'd probably put a GPS chip in it.

Then remotes gave us another problem. With advances in technology, and the addition of things like VCRs, Tivos, advanced radio and music system components, and other things, a person could find themselves with two to five or more handheld remotes laying near the easy chair. And some electronic devices today are almost entirely dependent on their remotes for program information, so that if the remote is lost...so are you.

Today, for a lot of people, especially people with lots of electronic gadgets and devices, the "Holy Grail" when it comes to handheld remotes would be ONE remote that can handle all electronic devices. Such a device would replace all the individual remotes and you might store them away in a drawer for backups. The "one remote" dream is a daunting challenge not only because (a) there are so many different kinds of devices you can buy today, and (b) each device has its own electronic DNA with its own personal way of doing its unique things, but (c) the manufacturers come out with new "upgrade editions" of their devices...or completely new incarnations of their old devices...so fast that a universal remote might be obsolete five minutes after you purchased it.

Logictech's engineers have attempted to solve the problem of the "universal remote" by creating a remote that can discover what all our electronic entertainment devices are "thinking" at the same time, can keep up with that huge amount of data into the future, and can put it into the remote for you so that you can run everything all the time from now on into the future. The key concept of this is that Logictech has created a web site with all the codes, so you connect your remote to your computer, go on the web and get the unique codes for your stuff, then disconnect the remote from your computer and go start controlling all your devices with this one handheld. Sounds simple, right? Well, the theory is simple, but the practical result is still not ready for Joe or Sally Consumer. Almost, but not quite yet.

It reminds me of when the early color TVs came out: their "colors" were weird pastels; it took a few years for the color TV picture to mimic Kodachrome reality. But even so, the technology is a step in the right direction.

Enter Logictech's Harmony 880 Remote Control. Tada! If you have REALLY NEW electronic devices (2005-2006...and beyond), you are in luck, because the 880 remote is most compatible with the setup configurations on the newer stuff. If your stuff is older, well, the older it is the more frustration you are likely to encounter because this remote dances with current and future stuff best. That's just a given. It can't cover all the protocols going back to things like my old Sony Betamax VCR and all that. Sorry. But if you have newer stuff, as I said, you're probably not going to have many problems in your setup with the device.

If your stuff is new, setup will be swift and relatively painless. You set up and run the CD software on your computer, you attach the remote to the computer via a USB cable, you go to the web site, and then you pick out your devices from the list on the web site and download the information into your remote. The Harmony will seem to "know" your devices like an old friend. Unlike some of the older attempts at "universal" remotes, you won't have to set your old remotes head-to-head with the 880 and beam the data across space from emitter to sensor; that USB cable will take care of it for you.

After going through the setup wizard, each device is assigned a symbol in a category called "activities". This category designation at first seems a bit odd until you think about it. Then it seems, well, logical for...Logictech...to call it that. Using a TV or a Tivo really is an "activity." So there you have it.

Let's say you select the activity "Watch the Tivo". Pressing the button turns on the TV, selects the Tivo, and you are off and running. "Listen to the iPod". "Listen to the the CD player". Same thing. You want it; you got it. "Put out the cat" - well, maybe not that yet!

You can specify all sorts of unique commands to be preset too, like volume control, etc. As with many devices today, there is a learning curve, but you don't have to have an Electrical Engineering degree to figure it out.

So what limits the user-friendliness of the device, and makes me feel that it is still not quite ready for the average consumer?

Well, first of all, if you have older devices you may have big-time problems. Things may just flat not work with the device, and if that happens, you will still have more than one remote beside you, which will be a joy-killer.

Second, while I have made the setup sound as easy as using a modern computer, for many people entering all the esoteric data about inputs and outputs and codes is going to be a left-brain gauntlet to run. Maybe they can call their techno-kid or the Geek squad, but they are going to feel like a techno-dunce, and woe to those kind of people if something gets out of whack or they decide to change something.

Third, using the remote requires a little tutoring. I am not completely inept around technical devices, but when I picked up my cousin's 880 and tried to watch the news, I was lost between the buttons. I had to get my cousin to give me a tutorial. If I couldn't figure it out, I'm sure a few other people in this wide world will have the same problem.

Fourth, the buttons are just too blasted small. I'm used to tiny buttons on my smartphone, but these are just a little too small for really operating the device. If I was a small Japanese woman (is that who invented this thing?) it would be different, but I'm a 6'5" man with large hands, and the control buttons are just too tiny.

Fifth, it is still too pricey for most people. At $259.00 I am not ready to buy one. My cousin is a genius in his field and can afford stuff like this, but it's way over the income class level for the average consumer, unless you have a real fetish about remotes.

Sixth, I hate that you have to use rechargeable batteries with it and have to keep it in a charging cradle. Do you really have to feed it all that much electricity all the time? Another stupid clunky-box that has to go into a wall outlet or a plug device. Why not just a few AA batteries? I guess the answer is that it needs all that juice, but this is maybe not worth the tradeoff of just keeping two or three "wireless" AA-battery-powered remotes near by.

And seventh, if you have small children, they can still hide it under the sofa cushions and you won't find your $259.00 wonder. And if you can't find it, ALL your electronic goodies may be dead in the water.

Even with all those caveats, though, if I was flush like my cousin, I might spring for this thing. It is a step, as I said, in the right direction, and I predict that one day separate remotes will be a concept as obsolete as different digital media formats. We all know that there is just one standard kind of universally compatible digital media format today, right? I wish.

No, I will give this baby four stars and a wish upon those stars. At the end of the day (literally), I'd rather just have to mess with one remote than two or three. After all, someone else might have one of those other remotes beside their chair, and then I'd lose....CONTROL!!! And we all know (gasp!) how important it is to be the one...in control. Sure.


Four Stars/****