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Logitech Harmony 1000 Advanced Universal Remote | 
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| Brand: Logitech
Category: CE
List Price: $499.99
Buy New: $329.93
You Save: $170.06 (34%)
New (44)
Avg. Customer Rating:  232 reviews
Color: Silver
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 5
Dimensions (in): 12 x 14 x 10
Warranty: 1 year warranty
MPN: 966230-0403
Model: 966230-0403
UPC: 097855042224
EAN: 0097855042224
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | Simply touch one icon and the Harmony remote will power on all the necessary components | | • | Large, color icons and backlit buttons ensure an entirely new level of ease and functionality | | • | Simply connect the Harmony 1000 to your computer, and the wizard guides you through the entire set-up process | | • | No need to worry about power with the rechargeable Lithium-ion battery. The handy recharging stand ensures that the unit is always powered up and easy to find | | • | Control everything from HDTVs to PVR/DVRs, from laser discs to VCRs, even lighting controls! Logitech's online database now includes 4500+ brands and 150,000+ IR devices |
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Product Description
The Logitech Harmony 1000 features a brilliant 3.5-inch color touch screen that allows for one-touch activity-based control of even the most sophisticated A/V components. Say goodbye to the inconvenience of multiple remotes controlling multiple devices; Logitech's patented Smart State Technology makes it easy to control your HDTV, adjust aspect ratios, or change sound modes?there are no complicated macros to program. Just press an on-screen activity icon and Harmony does the rest. One remote is all you'll need to control even the most complex home entertainment systems. And when used together with a Harmony RF Wireless Extender (sold separately), you can further reduce clutter by placing your components out of sight. Since the remote can transmit both infrared and radio frequency commands, you can control equipment inside a cabinet or even in the next room. Package Contents - Logitech Harmony 1000 remote control / Charging station / USB cable /AC Adapter / Lithium-ion battery / Installation CD / Installation guide / 1-year warranty
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| Customer Reviews: Read 227 more reviews...
 Affordable Color Touch Screen February 2, 2007
158 out of 168 found this review helpful
After a 1 year delay, Logitech finally released the Harmony 1000 on January 26, 2007.
A warning for Mac users, although Logitech claims this Harmony remote works (can be programmed) using a Mac, and the box clearly shows the Mac logo stamped on it, the Harmony 1000 cannot currently be set-up using your Mac. Plenty of web forum users have reported the same issue. Hopefully a Mac patch will be posted on Logitech's site. Shame on Logitech, especially given the one year delay to get the product right.
Secondly, if you currently own a Harmony web-programmed remote, the web software is EXACTLY the same as your previous experience. In other words, if you hated Logitech's old on-line software, you'll still hate it with the 1000.
The touch screen itself looks and works great, but as with any touch screen remote, you may find yourself longing for tactile rubber buttons after a week or so of touch screen use. DVR users might struggle to get the remote button layout to work to their individual satisfaction, as the colored default touch screen buttons that are professionally laid out by Logitech are in fact permanently labeled. So if you choose to change the function of any colored button, the old default name must remain painted on top of your "custom" button. Strange oversight.
However, you can customize additional pages of ugly buttons to your liking, but they will be black and white buttons laid out in static tic-tac-toe fashion. Hardly what the box cover would lead you to believe. As with all touch screens, you will have to "look before pressing" - every single time - you want to send a command. That's OK when using an ATM, but not so great when watching a TV across the room.
I'd recommend a trip to your local retailer to play with the 1000 for a while before deciding to buy. It does feel solidly constructed, though not as comfortable in your hand as a $45 programmable remote after two hours of commercial busting DVR use. Also keep in mind that while you're shopping for a touch screen remote, there's someone next to you in the store looking to change back to something smaller with real rubberized buttons on it!
To add to the fun, the user manual for this $500 wonder is not located in the box or on the installation disc, but rather it is buried in the online remote software. Once you get the remote's firmware updated from the web (using the online software) the right side of the website screen will have a "Tip Center - More Help" button. Click that, then click "Manuals" to download the 15 page PDF manual for the remote.
A steep learning curve might await buyers new to the Harmony line due to the "Activities" philosophy. Just keep in mind that everything is done with Activities and you'll be way ahead of the game. Don't waste time programming each "device" as you would normally want to do. Harmony remotes don't work that way. You only need to enter your devices (audio/video components in your collection) once during the initial set up to give the database your overall equipment list. After that, concentrate on setting up your activities (Watch Cable, Watch DVD) for two or three days to get everything just right.
If all this sound like fun to you, you'll probably love tweaking this remote to near perfection. But if the thought if spending hours in front of your PC setting up a remote control sounds ominous to you, steer clear.
 Great idea. Wait to buy unless you want to pay $$$ and time to be an alpha tester... March 1, 2007
94 out of 110 found this review helpful
I can't add much to what's already been said but I want to echo the disappointment in hopes that Logitech will hurry up and fix this product.
It's great hardware. The screen is bright & legible, it's the perfect combo of hard & soft buttons, and it's also the perfect blend of easy to operate while being light and small. BUT the software is just unbelievable. This product should not be on the market. I have never used a product that out of the box was so buggy. The whole reason to buy this remote is customizability, and so many of the customizations just won't "take" (you put them in, and they disappear, and you lose your work). And I think I'm pretty patient - I've owned a Slim Devices Squeezebox for more than a year, and though there were many frustrations with that device, the company was very responsive, with nightly software updates and a bug list that anyone can post to. Logitech has a lot to learn from this company, which they recently acquired.
That said, I'm keeping the remote - it does function and I'm hopeful they'll work on the software. But for the price, Logitech has no excuse. The remote is essentially a nicer version of what they already offer; there's not really any new functions, it's mostly the packaging of non-standard hard buttons into soft. Someone should get fired over this. No backup for customer programming? Come on.
 great idea but not mature February 10, 2007
77 out of 102 found this review helpful
I returned my Harmony 1000 after a few days. Before buying it you should consider a few inherent limitations of universal remotes, as well as some specific flaws of this device.
First the inherent limitations: the remote combines your original remotes into one and can send commands to multiple devices with one push of a button. For example, it tells the TV to turn on, go to channel 3, and tells the DVD to turn on. So far, great. But if you happen to have aimed your remote a bit wrong and the TV missed the command to turn on, the Harmony won't notice. It will think everything's fine and you're watching a DVD. You can't just press the "watch DVD" button again to fix it--you'll have to navigate through a series of screens to select the TV and repeat the "on" command. Ouch. Not convenient. (This problem isn't specific to the Harmony 1000--because your TV doesn't send any reply, any remote doesn't really know whether a command was received.)
Also, while the Harmony can be successful at simplifying your control of your entertainment systems, expect to pay for that simplicity by spending several hours to set it up. Even if you're fairly knowledgeable about your equipment you'll likely spend at least 4 hours to set it up, and another few to polish the settings once you've used the remote for a bit.
A second problem was that the Harmony library didn't recognize two of the four devices I have; for example, it didn't know the DirecTV HD TiVo model I have. What made this worse was that the remote's "learn" function didn't work reliably (it would claim to have recognized and learned a command, but afterwards that command wouldn't actually work; this happened for a small fraction of commands but was still disappointing).
Finally, Logitech's setup software is quite cumbersome to use because it forces you to do everything in a certain order, and many screens don't have a "back" button. For example, you have set up your devices first, then you define your activities. If you realize you forgot to add your amplifier when trying to define the first activity, you can't go back and add it. No siree, no can do--please finish defining all activities, then define your commands, update the remote's software, and "verify" that everything "works", and *then* we'll let you go back and add a device. Very annoying.
To summarize, while the Harmony 1000 has a good core idea, looks beautiful, and may work beautifully for others, it didn't work for me.
Very buggy, not very compatible. February 28, 2007
23 out of 27 found this review helpful
First, I am a fan of Harmony remotes. I have a 688, an 880, and an 890, and they all work great with all my equipment--not so the 1000. It has a problem controlling many of my devices--it sends half a dozen events per keypress with some keys on certain devices. My Sirius radio is not controllable with this. My Dish Network receiver is not controllable. My Yamaha receiver's volume is always "too high or too low". The nominal fix for this drops from 20 events per press to 4-6 per press, but that hardly helps.
Repeated calls to customer support couldn't get it working properly, although now the up/down keys will move only 1 step, the keys won't respond if held down, so lowering the volume 20 points takes 20 presses, and 20 seconds. Stepping through channel lists results in carpal tunnel syndrome.
Customer support tries very hard, and succeeds 80% of the way, but the 1000 is not adequate, in the sense that it SHOULD be a high-end "do it painlessly" remote, which unfortunately, it is not. It's very finicky, buggy, error-prone, a real PITA. It seems that once Logitech started designing the remotes (after they purchased Harmony), the graphic design has sharpened, the price has zoomed up, and the quality has dropped significantly. :-(
Note, Customer support of the 1000 is handled by a "Tier 2" group, hold time exceeds 45 minutes.
I had to return it after two weeks of effort.
Colossal disappointment February 18, 2007
21 out of 27 found this review helpful
This device is a great disappointment to me; I was waiting for it with great anticipation. After multiple reinstallations I still could not get to the manual so what I am writing is based on reverse engineering the options presented by the software.
The remote is based around the idea of activities. The user first tells the software about the components that will be controlled by the remote. The software then allocates groups of components to activities. For example, a dvd player and a tv can be combined into the "Watch DVD" activity. When an activity is selected the remote takes you to the corresponding activity screen which contains control buttons Logitech designed for the activity. E.g. with "Watch DVD" you may get standard Play/Pause/FF/etc controls. It is also possible to control devices (e.g. a dvd player) directly if some button or control sequence is missing from the activity screen.
If you think that predefined activity screens cover what you need from the remote then this may well be the device you will be perfectly happy with. But read on ...
Activity screens are fixed; there is no way to edit layouts or even the button labels. Some buttons can be disabled by disassociating them from a command but they still appear on the screen.
The pictures in the advertising materials hint on multiple screens of colourful, customizable buttons. In reality you get the following screens: dvd like control screen, numerical screen, activity screen and the devices screen. You can customize rows of drab grey buttons (labels only, not the appearance), but as far as smart controls go this is it.
The software is full of quirks and is extremely inflexible. You can not pick the devices to include in an activity; the soft decides this for you. For example, for some inexplicable reason the software insists on including my portable media player in the "Watch TV" activity together with my Satellite PVR and the TV. I could find no way to convince it not to do this (the soft simply refuses to define the activity without the player) or to remove the media player from the activity once it has been defined.
Devices can also be controlled individually by choosing the appropriate section for the component from the devices screen. If Logitech has your component in their comprehensive database it will map the functions of the component remote onto pages upon pages of uninspiring grey buttons. I heard that Logitech is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on programming for Harmony remotes. If this is so I am at a bit of a loss as to where this money goes. Device screens have surely been designed by a monkey.
To give an example of this programming brilliance; on the device screen for my Satellite TV/PVR the fast forward button is on screen 4, reverse button is on screen 5 and the play button is on screen 6. So to fast forward I need to scroll to page 4, then scroll down two pages and press play. If it overshoots I then have to go back a page click reverse, scroll down again... well, you get the picture. Buttons can be remapped, so they can be placed in a sensible order but be prepared to spend a lot of time with the software. Again, you can edit button labels but not the appearance of the buttons.
The remote comes with something called remote assistance that pops up unhelpful messages once in a while. Every time it does so you need to click two or three buttons to get back to the main screen. I think of it as Clippy (remember the old MS office) for the new millennium. I could find no way to disable it.
Pros:
Looks good and appears to be well constructed. Comfortable to hold in two hands.
Works as advertised if you are happy with activities as they are defined by Logitech software.
Cons:
The glossy black plastic around the touch screen is of the type that shows every fingerprint.
Can not be operated with one hand.
Inflexible button layouts; lack of customizable buttons.
Useless standard device layouts.
Awful software. Terrible help system.
Annoying remote assistance software.
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