Logitech Harmony 880 Review [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

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HAVIC
06-13-2005, 11:37 AM
Well I got my Harmony 880 on Friday night. After opening the box I followed the quick instructions and inserted the battery and set the remote on the charging cradle. The first thing that bugged me was that the manual said to charge it until all bars are green. It never said approx 4 hours, etc. Anyway I figured it was going to charge overnight.

Saturday morning I get up and the remote is fully charged. II nsert the CD that came with the remote and installed the software. I then plugged in my remote and it tells me that the desktop software is out of date and I need to install the new version which is a 25mb version. No big deal for myself as I have high speed internet access. After I run the install, the program tells me to first uninstall the previous version. Ok this whole process was a minor annouyance, but what I later realized was the CD they included DOES NOT have any information for the Harmony 880 on it. It only includes the manuals for the previous 2 harmony remotes. I know Logitech was behind on getting this remote out on the market by I was less than impressed from a company I have buying equipment from since the mid 80's.

Well those few issues aside, I ran through the only setup.

The setup went quite well except I could not find a section for Subwoofers. So I decided to select Amplifier and typed in my Subwoofer make and model and PRESTO, it had my IR settings.

So I continued the setup and it wants to set up the Activities on the remote. Activites are macros that harmony setups up for you by asking you a few simple questions. I easily went through this and was able to set everything up, except for the subwoofer as it did not understand that these device needed to be in the macro setup. This was not a major problem as it asked if I wanted to added any other devices to the activity which I said yes. Now it never told me if I needed to send a Power on command to the sub for this activity which I initially figured I would, but I decided not to send a power on command as it never stated that it was doing so for the other devices. But I did tell it to send a sub command for the 1 of the 3 presets for my sub.

I finish the programming and update the remote through the included USB cable. This takes about 1-2 minutes. The remote is now ready to use.......

WOW


Clicked the Watch TV activity and sure enought it turned everything on like it was supposed even the subwoofer, which I wasn't sure if it was going to. I then switched to the watch DVD activity and it shut off my cable box, turned on the DVD player, and change my audio and video input assignments. When I hit off, it shut the entire system down.

Now while everything worked after the initial setup and maybe fine for most users, I was determined to make this remote as "perfect" for me as possible and spent the next 1 1/2 hours tweaking it. I also tweaked it once more in the evening. Things I tweak were button locations for each device and activity. I also had to re-program some of the DSP settings on the Harmony 880 as they were not exactly right.

I have also used the Harmony 688 at my friends house and will make some quick comparisons...

I feel that the 688 has a better ergonomic feel to it, the 880 seemed like it was designed for someone with larger fingers. Both of these remotes have a two channel grove on the underside of the remote to help hold it. On the 688 it fit prefectly. I do not have large hands, but are certainly large than a females, so they may find the 880 remote not to be all that comforatible.

The 880 has a new feature that none of the other harmony's have. This feature detects you picking up the remote and automatically enables the back light. I must say this feature is awesome.

And lastly the Lithium Ion battery. Today is tuesday and tonight I will have to put the remote on the cradle to charge it up. I have not put it on the charger since the initial charge. I am assuming that it is because of all the updating through the USB that has caused the battery life to be shortened. After I charge it up tonight I will know about how long the battery life actually lasts.

In Conclusion...

While I had a few minor inconveniences this is the best universal remote I have ever used.
I had looked at the Universal Remote MX-800 as well and played with it, which was setup in a Magnolia Home theater store (inside of my local Best Buy.) I felt that the MX-800 was way to large of a remote and I like the smart technology of the Harmony 880, knowing which device is on/off. Also the MX-800 was even less ergonomic than the Harmony 880.

Ratings - Based on 5/5 being best and 1/5 being worst

Build Quality 4.5/5
Design/Layout 4.5/5
Value 5/5
Ergonomics 4/5
Tech Support 5/5

Overall 4.5/5


Hope this review was helpfull and it was my first, let me know how I did and if you found it to be helpfull.

Thanks
Greg

noddin0ff
06-13-2005, 01:26 PM
I suppose I could look this up but, price?

Nice review!

HAVIC
06-13-2005, 02:02 PM
I suppose I could look this up but, price?

Nice review!

Sorry, price was $250 at best buy, had I waited until all retailers had it I looks like you can get for about $200.

I'm glad you liked the review

Thanks
greg

Geoffcin
06-13-2005, 03:30 PM
Sorry, price was $250 at best buy, had I waited until all retailers had it I looks like you can get for about $200.

I'm glad you liked the review

Thanks
greg

But next time please post all reviews to the Product Review section instead of the Forums.
When you post a review to the forums you invite argument about your review. There's been problems when this has happend before, and I don't want it to happen again. If you can't find your item listed please post a note in the "Site Feedback/Discussion" forum, and it will be added. Thanks again, and nice job!

EdwardGein
06-13-2005, 04:22 PM
You left out the most important part in your review (at least I think you did- for me personally it was way to long, I just can't read reviews that long for anything but that's my own personal taste & I could be in the minority here) namely that the technical support is fast & easy & to me is the biggest selling point. Obviously I don't have or like patience, and if you don't want to screw around with this setting it up, etc., all you have to do is call up the technical support people and they'll program everything for you the way you want on your computer log in space (you do need to register with them) & then just download everything by USB into your remote. Takes all of 5-10 minutes at most. I personally found I had to fine tune things a few times which was no problem as all I had to do was call them up and they programmed it onto my remote.

As I said I have the 676 Universal which you can get for around $125 or so including shipping online. From what I heard the 888 does exactly the same as the 676 but is cosmetically better but if money was a factor, your better off spending $125 for the 676 then what you can get the 888 online which should be alot cheaper than what you can get it at a store. As a general rule, you can get substantial savings on electronics parts and accessories online from a reputable seller than wasting your money at a store. The only reason I'd pay extra at a store is if you needed it that very minute AND COULDN'T WAIT 5-10 Days for it.

HAVIC
06-13-2005, 05:00 PM
You left out the most important part in your review (at least I think you did- for me personally it was way to long, I just can't read reviews that long for anything but that's my own personal taste & I could be in the minority here) namely that the technical support is fast & easy & to me is the biggest selling point. Obviously I don't have or like patience, and if you don't want to screw around with this setting it up, etc., all you have to do is call up the technical support people and they'll program everything for you the way you want on your computer log in space (you do need to register with them) & then just download everything by USB into your remote. Takes all of 5-10 minutes at most. I personally found I had to fine tune things a few times which was no problem as all I had to do was call them up and they programmed it onto my remote.

As I said I have the 676 Universal which you can get for around $125 or so including shipping online. From what I heard the 888 does exactly the same as the 676 but is cosmetically better but if money was a factor, your better off spending $125 for the 676 then what you can get the 888 online which should be alot cheaper than what you can get it at a store. As a general rule, you can get substantial savings on electronics parts and accessories online from a reputable seller than wasting your money at a store. The only reason I'd pay extra at a store is if you needed it that very minute AND COULDN'T WAIT 5-10 Days for it.

EdwardGein I agree with you about long reviews, I usually go to a couple of websites, that over the years I can trust, and just skip to their conclusion. I just liked the remote so much I wanted to let people know. As I was writing I said this is getting too long and I could of typed more.

Also I called their tech support for the first time today because I had a couple of questions and they were Outstanding and get a 5/5 for it. They were able to fix somethings I was not completely aware of. They saw that some of the learned ir functions may not be in the best format and corrected it for me.

Greg

EdwardGein
06-13-2005, 07:02 PM
Wow someone who didn't insult me, you rule! Did you ever have the 676 as I'm wondering how you would compare the two. I'll probably wait for the price on the 880 to drop and see if I can sell my 676 on Ebay at a good price and then get the 880 which does look cosmetically better.

To me this whole company rocks. I had about 6-7 different remotes by my couch to do things and now I just use the Harmony Remote. It's worth every penny whether for the 676 or the 880. If I hadn't already gotten the 676 I would have bought the 880 online.

The one thing people should know is if you have say 2 master home theater systems- one say in the living room and one in the bedroom and different receivers or TV's, you need to have 2 different Harmony remotes because essentially you can't have 2 different TV's say Mitsubishi and Samsung for example on one remote. I thus have 2 676 remotes.

JeffKnob
06-14-2005, 12:49 PM
I have been looking into the Harmony remotes for both myself and my parents for a little while now. Edward, can you do all the day to day functions of the 8300HD using your Harmony 676? I have yet to see a good universal remote that will function well with the menus and guide of that cable box. I really like the idea of spending $125 instead of $250 for a remote.

EdwardGein
06-14-2005, 04:07 PM
I have been looking into the Harmony remotes for both myself and my parents for a little while now. Edward, can you do all the day to day functions of the 8300HD using your Harmony 676? I have yet to see a good universal remote that will function well with the menus and guide of that cable box. I really like the idea of spending $125 instead of $250 for a remote.

The 676 does everything It does my TV (Mitsubishi HDTV via my Denon receiver via my Scientific Atlanta 8300 HD DVR/cable box, DVD via the Denon and Harmon Kardon 31 DVD player, same with my CD's. Basically Harmony has the remote programing from every known brand in the world other than some obscure brand which I have no doubt 20% of the people on this board have just to be cool.. The easiest thing to do when you get it is to first register online via Harmony's website & then map out what you want each function (TV, music, DVD, etc.) to do via your different components and then call up Harmony's support. They will then load up everything on your account & you can download it direct to your remote via USB cable in 3 minutes. I had to fine tune a few functions to get things in the order I wanted which meant a few calls to them and they did everything immediately. IE, if you have a DVR, and "A" erases and "B" saves, I had them program it so my A & B buttons would do just that. They won't do that on their own unless you program everything.

I then got some money back by selling remotes I knew I would never need again such as my Denon 3801 remote for $60 (If I was planning to sell anything no I wouldn't sell a remote but in this case, I know I'll never sell my Denon).