Review: Logitech Harmony 1000i

The Harmony consists of a large 3.5 inch colour touch screen and comes in a brushed metal finish. It has that typical Logitech look as it combines elegance yet doesn’t go too overboard on the bling. The fact there’s a touch a screen means that you don’t need many physical buttons, a similar logic that’s taken with the Iphone.

Most people have a pretty elaborate entertainment setup these days. And yes it can get pretty messy with a VCR, a DVD player, gaming console, HI FI, and of course a television. So the big question is how many remote controls do you have? Quite a few right?

So in comes the universal remote, a controller that’s clever enough to talk to all of your devices. However in the past these remotes have required some intense programming sessions, this meant that you had to pull out all your old remotes and teach your new remote all the standard operations.

So right now we’re talking about a universal remote that connect to your PC and it takes away the task of programming, it’s the Logitech Harmony 1000i and ironically it looks more like a little television than a remote. The Harmony consists of a large 3.5 inch colour touch screen and comes in a brushed metal finish. It has that typical Logitech look as it combines elegance yet doesn’t go too overboard on the bling. The fact there’s a touch a screen means that you don’t need many physical buttons, a similar logic that’s taken with the Iphone.

The true beauty of the Harmony 1000i is that it can multitask for you with the press of a button, or a virtual button so to speak. If you want to turn your television to AV2 and then switch on your DVD player, and maybe even your Stereo all at once, you can! And all with just one command which you’d probably name “Watch A DVD”. You could then control the DVD player with your Harmony, so in the end you’d be completely doing away with all your conventional remote controls. Just don’t throw them out; you may want them back one day.

Setting up the Harmony 1000i does take a little bit of patience, you’ll need to install the included software and add all the components that you own into your personal remote. The good news is that Logitech have a massive database. For example I have a very strange Set top box from a brand that I’ve never actually heard of, but it was in the database so that was a surprise.

Unfortunately the Harmony does fall down in its actual performance. We found it to be quite unstable when operating about over four devices at once. This is because the remote’s sending out different Infra Red (IR) messages all within a very quick time-frame. To rectify this problem you have to adjust the delays and response times. Unfortunately these settings aren’t on the remote, so you’ll have to take it backwards and forth to your computer in order to get it just right.

If you enjoy tinkering with gadgets then this could be your answer to the remote control war taking place in your lounge room. The Logitech Harmony 1000i has an RRP of 699.95 and a street price of around 400.

Product: Logitech Harmony 1000i

Vendor: Logitech

RRP: $699.95

Website: Logitech Harmony 1000i

Reviewed by Michael Stark