Thread: Harmony Remote

I saw that in the recent DS brochure. It's very tempting to get rid of the 5 remotes we have now & replace them with one.
I guess then I'd have a spare hand to hold my beer then .


BTW, Tandy & Dick Smith are one & the same now .

Originally Posted by Scouse

I saw that in the recent DS brochure. It's very tempting to get rid of the 5 remotes we have now & replace them with one.
I guess then I'd have a spare hand to hold my beer then .


BTW, Tandy & Dick Smith are one & the same now .

yeah thats why i knew tandys would do the offer and i couldnt be botheredd to go to dick smith

i would highly recommend getting your rear end there and buying one $74 isnt a huge amount and this thing works (unlike all the other kinds) due to the fact it has a huge internet database, is fully programmable and also learns too (just in case you have a very very obscure device) for functions it doesnt have on the remote it has pages of soft keys at the top on the lcd, there are 2 buttons either side of the screen, and you scroll through the pages and press the corresponding button..

1 remote, 1 beer ideal..

Originally Posted by 5teve

Hi Guys...

Just a quick heads up.. i have just bought a logitech harmony remote from tandys (189.95 normally but dick smith have it for 74 at the mo so they price match) its a computer programmable remote that can control upto 15 peices of kit, and has 'activities' so if i want to watch TV i can hit the watch tv button and it switches on the tv, sets the input, switches on the amp, sets the input and then tells the computer to go to the tv module in the software (its a home theatre pc)

only messed around with it for an hour or so yesterday and it seems bloody great! takes a bit of messing with to get it to work, and certain things seem to be hidden quite well in the software, but i just cant beleive how powerful it is.

Rach commented about it probably not having all our stuff inbuilt... no problem as it gets its info from the 'net currently have over 85000 devices in the database and i have some obscure stuff including a not very common home theatre case!

if your fed up of remotes... you gotta get one of these!

Thanks

Steve

Been seeing this thing pop up recently and have considered it. I currently have a home theatre set up and my amp has a universal remote but it is not that great. By setting input do you mean I can hit one button and it will turn my amp to say DVD, select THX, select source for projector etc all in one go? I have to hit about 4-5 buttons on various machines to watch a DVD and visa versa to watch foxtel or tv. Now this is no big deal, but sometimes I forget which source is for what etc etc so a one button click would be great. Can it perform foxtel iQ functions too?

correct Mick

the remote has 'activities' so for example the watch TV activity i have created does the following,

Turns AV amp on and sets sound input to video1

turns tv on and sets to HDMI

changes Mediacentre PC to TV mode and turns TV module on and then changes it to full screen.

the remote is then set in a mode where volume up down is done on the amp channel up down is done on the HTPC etc etc and the 'Soft keys' are configured for watching tv (and are fully configurable)

if i press the watch DVD player activity it does:-

Turns AV amp on and sets sound input to DVD

turns tv on and sets to Component 1

Turns DVD player on.

sets the remote key and soft keys accordingly for DVD watching.

if i press the power off button it will turn everything off and in the HTPC case i added a command to take it back to the home page.

the other clever thing is that the remote knows or tracks what is on and off so if i go from watch tv to watch dvd it leaves the TV on and the Amp on but changes the sources for the amp and tv and then turns dvd on etc etc.

bloody clever..

like i say tho they do take some fiddling

not sure about the foxtel thing... but it basically can do ANYTHING the existing remote can do too...

Thanks

Steve

Thanks Steve, great info, has been added to my shopping list of "things I must have"

Aye, Mick

Looks like i'm going via tricky dickys to work tomorrow .

**** Disclaimer*****

Dependant on how complex your setup is will determine how long it takes to setup yuor remote, the more complex, the more time it will take.

Logitech reserve the right to hide things in the software that you can only find, after accidentally seeing once, once you have completed an hours search.

**** Disclaimer*****

i have about set mine up (but am struggling time wise) and so far i have most operations down to a single button press just trying to iron a few niggles out mainly to do with the computer not the setup!

for $74 it really isnt worth not getting!

let me know how you guys go with it! or if you need any help!

Thanks

Steve

All i can say is WOW ! took me about 20 mins to setup including finding the model numbers for my 6 devices and configuring i remote. I went to Tandy but they didnt have any so i went to JB hifi nearby and they had them for $99, i said "are these on sale ? Dicksmith have them for $74 ", the salesman punched a few keys and said "i can do it for $70 " i said "SOLD !" .
Cant go wrong for $70 , may have to do some fine tuning once i try out every function but so far so good.