Logitech Harmony Ultimate & Smart Control Remotes Review

We haven't reviewed a remote control in quite a while, and there's a good reason for that. With a few minor exceptions, there hasn't been much movement in the residential remote control market. Until this year. This is the Logitech Harmony Ultimate and the Harmony Smart Control. Harmony busted onto the scene several years ago and was bought up by Logitech who then advanced the ergonomic design of the products and made them look a lot cooler. But the strength of the Harmony brand of remotes was always the extensive database of AV equipment. They controlled everything, and they did it without you having to program every single button. You just added your devices and set up activities based on the gear you use. Then you tell it what inputs you use for what, and you're off to the races.

Simple? Yes. Quick? Absolutely. Reliable? Not so much back then, but then Logitech added RF capabilities and IR repeaters, and things got much better. This new WiFi-meets-cloud-based software is their best yet, and it's only fitting that the company revamped its remotes as well to bring them up to speed with the expectations of our smart-phone-toting society.

You get this beautifully-shaped device, but it also has a new 2.4" color touch screen that lets you press and swipe...and it has vibrating haptic feedback for the buttons, so you know your command was recognized.

Now, I lost my remote control system in a lightning storm, along with just about anything that used Ethernet or HDMI...It was a mess. Bottom line is that, while I can't complain too much, I was "slumming it" in the area of remote controls. See, my gear is remotely located in a closet, so a good control system is pretty important to me. To get me up and running I had rigged an IR receiver and transmitter and was using all of my individual remotes as needed.

With the Harmony Ultimate, I'm back to pressing a single button to activate everything I need. And it's soooo nice. But let me back up, because it only took me about an hour to configure everything just the way I wanted it. I could have been up and running in far less time, but I'm pretty particular about how I want my theater room to respond to commands. 

The capacitance touch screen of the Logitech Ultimate Remote lets you swipe, and it also has Haptic feedback

The new cloud software is awesome. Similar to Netflix streaming, it uses the Microsoft Silverlight browser plug-in so it will only work on browsers like Safari and Internet Explorer. Basic setup was completed in 5 steps. You connect the hub wirelessly to your home network, assign your devices, create your activities, download that info to the remote via USB, test it all out, and it's ready to go. 

 

 

The many setup screens of the Logitech Harmony Ultimate Remote

In my theater I'm controlling a Denon AVR-5308CI receiver, an Oppo BDP-103 DVD player, a DISH Hopper with Sling, an Xbox 360 and an Epson Pro Cinema 6010UB projector. I'm also controlling a Carada Masquerade screen with built-in masking system. What's really cool is that I was able to extend one of the two included IR emitters to the theater room, allowing it to control the Epson projector. The only issue was that the emitters use a 1/16" connector instead of the more popular 3.5mm, so they don't fit any of my existing extenders, and I needed to adapt my existing system to use the smaller cable. 

The Haptic touchscreen is really amazing and not to be missed.

But when I pressed the button everything worked. Seriously, I mean the first time. Once I had everything properly set up to use the right inputs the system just worked. I liked it so much I grabbed a Harmony Smart Control to use in my 2-channel living room system. It's a bit more convoluted, and I needed to mess with the order in which things came up as well as the input delays, but that's what I like about Harmony—you can customize those things when you need to. After some tweaking and re-ordering, I got things to work much more reliably than with any other control system I had tried. 

When things aren't quite happening the way you want, you can usually adjust the sequence and delays to get it into ship shape. 

Harmony's IR-based systems are finicky, but with the Harmony Ultimate and Smart Control, Logitech seems to have really nailed it. I didn't have any issues with IR emitter levels. Delays all seemed to work properly, and everything snapped into place fairly easily. It's a very simple system to set up, and it's even easier to program. For $349, it may be the one component in your system that brings you the most satisfaction. Not to mention accolades from your friends.  And while the Ultimate provides an excellent touch screen interface, if you just want a simpler remote, or you want to use your smart phone to control your system, then you can save over $200 and pick up the Harmony Smart Control or just the $99 Ultimate Hub. Both are excellent and incredibly feature-rich. I can't believe how cool this remote is. It can control anything.

Beauty AND brains!

So what remote control system do you use in your home theater? Are you using individual remotes, or have you consolidated to a more universal solution? RF? WiFi? We're curious, so let us know by posting a comment on this video or posting a photo to our Facebook page—facebook.com/audioholics. Also, please Subscribe to our YouTube channel so we can keep bringing you video reviews.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.