Logitech launches MEGA-PRICEY 15-in-1 remote
£229 buys you deluxe model, cheaper sister sets you back £109
Swiss mouse master Logitech will whip out a pair of new Harmony “universal” remote controls this month, extending the range to take in home automation kit as well as your home entertainment rig.
First, the Harmony Ultimate, the latest in Logitech’s line of programmable controllers. This one can control up to 15 devices and has a 2.4-inch colour touchscreen in addition to the usual remote control keys. Said keys are now backlit, which should please punters who like to watch movies with the lights down low.
Speaking of lights, the Ultimate can tap into Philips’ Hue line of network-connected LED home lighting products by way of Logitech’s Harmony Hub, a device designed to control equipment tucked away in cabinets. It is equipped with a set of infrared transmitters for this purpose.
Kit lying out in the open can be controlled directly with the Ultimate’s infrared beamer, but it also has Bluetooth connectivity to turn on games consoles. Some 225,000-odd home-entertainment devices from a whopping 5,000 manufacturers are supported by the Harmony series.
The Hub can also be controlled using an Android and iOS smartphone app, and if you don’t require the fancy Ultimate, Logitech will offer the Hub bundled up with a more basic, screen-less remote for £110 less. This Harmony Smart Control pack bundle will set you back £109. The Harmony Ultimate set, - the Hub plus the snazzier remote - costs £229.
Both go on sale in Blighty in May, though they’ll be on US shop shelves this month. The Logitech Harmony smartphone app is free. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Who are they kidding?
"A remote control for the price of a small TV."
Absolutely. So there you are, needing an advanced remote control, and you see this. "Ridiculous", you say,"I'm not paying that to control my £10,000 home cinema setup - not when I can spend the money on a small TV".
One small TV later....
"Bugger. I now need a remote control for my £10,110 home cinema setup which now has an extra, redundant, small TV and an extra remote control."
Well if they would hurry up and do away with IR as the communications channel then remotes could go away, or at least be more useful.
I have various Logitech remotes including the expensive ones with the fancy touch screen. Where they all fall down is that IR is a one way and not entirely reliable communications medium. The remote has no way of knowing the current state of the devices it's attempting to control. So it operates assuming the device was in the last known state and that any command sent is successful. The result is that it's often out of sync with reality.
By using bluetooth or some other bi-directional RF communications the remote could query the device to determine it's current state as well as get positive acknowledgment that the commands succeeded.
I tried to go the one-control-to-rule-them-all route and had about as much success as Sauron. It was a mid-range Philips RC, for about 50 bucks. The problem was this: it only recognized a certain set of devices for its built-in support, and the memory for the learning mode was insufficient.
I have a collection of devices spanning a great age range. The radio receiver + amp, with 6 channel inputs, is a name brand, but over 20 years old. It cost a lot at the time and is still going strong, so no reason to replace it. The large plasma screen TV is an off-brand, pre-production model, about 5 years old. It doesn't even have a name and model number. Then there are a couple of DVD and Blue-Ray players. The programmable RC had in its built-in catalog similar stereo amps from the same manufacturer, but not the exact model. Sadly, the differences were just enough to make using the wrong model unsatisfactory.
So I had to use the learning mode for everything: point the old RC at the new one, press a button, and map that to a button on the programmable RC. Repeat for every device. After about 80 buttons, the new wonder RC ran out of memory, leaving me unable to control everything.
Memory is cheap, but when manufacturers are trying to save pennies, this is what happens.
@mdava Re: Who are they kidding?
Have a downvote, purely for the use of "Xbox" as a verb. "for the kids to Xbox on"...?! Seriously? Do people speak like that or are such abominations constrained to text-based exchanges? Ye gods...
Re: Really?
I think the idea is if you use your games console as a bluray or other media player then you can control it with the same remote you use to watch the TV.
Of course this particular remote is expensive but the logitech remotes in general are very good, mine cost about £35 and does a great job controlling TV, media centre, surround amp, squeezebox etc.
