Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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138 of 140 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely fantastic. But nope, it's NOT for everyone., 21 Feb 2007
I recently got this remote for myself. I have a TV, Sky Box, Amp, DVD and PS2 (to use as DVD sometimes when some discs wont play on my main player) (and upstairs I have TV, Freeview, DVD). So you see I needed to get one of these.
I previously had a touchscreen universal remote which could control 8 devices. The backlit touchscreen thing was cool at first, but I soon realized that controlling volume was a pain - had to make single clicks for each single step of volume. It's just stupid. I ended up going back to use my other remotes.
This Harmony 555 caught my eyes when it was reviewed in the Stuff magazine. LCD display looked cool, and it had all proper buttons (that's why I preferred this over the new Philips remote which was half buttons half touchscreen). Logitech boasts that they have a database of over 125000 devices from 3500+ manufacturers from around the globe. That's really something I thought. Other universal remotes can learn from the original remote, so can this too (just in case u need to). And oh, it can control 15 devices, and can have more than one of the same type (eg two TVs, two DVDs). Other universal remotes, I think, can't do that. And if you have light switches or airconditioners which work with an IR remote, u can use the H555 to control those too. You'd get the codes for them in that database of 125000 different devices. It's just WOW!
I must warn that this can not be used out of the box. It's not one of those remotes where u press a few keys on the remote for each device type and it'll start working. This needs to be programmed via a computer connected to the internet. And it takes quite a bit of time. That's because there are so many things you can do with this, it's just so customizable. If you want a remote to work out of the box, look for something else, seriously! But if you're like me - happy to spend good few hours programming it - I'll totally recommend this one. You'll get a universal remote like no other, totally customized for you. You might just want to keep on customizing it - at least whenever you feel that there's this one button which should work differently.
When the remote is not in use, it'll be on a standby mode with it's LCD switched off to save battery. As soon as you pick up the remote it gets alive, you dont have to press a key to get it active, I think it has some kind of a motion sensor :-) You can also program activities (or macros) from the web-based configuration page. It's quite nice. Say if you wanna watch TV - u can mention the particular TV unit you wanna use for the activity, what input source (eg. freeview/sky), what input channel on the TV (eg. AV1) and where you want to control the volume (eg. on the TV itself or using the separate amp you have). When you press the "Watch TV" button, it'll turn on the Sky box, the TV, put it in the right channel, turn on the amp (and put that in the right audio source channel). And when everything is switched on you can work without selecting any particular device, i.e. if you change channel, it'll change it on your Sky box, if you increase volume it'll do that on the amp. When you're done watching TV, you can just press one power button, and it'll switch off everything that was being used for the activity. It's just so cool. Using the H555 is an absolutely delightful experience.
Once again, I'd emphasize on the fact that this is not for everyone. As you can make out from the other comments too, some people will really like it, some absolutely hate it. But if you like to tweak things around to get exactly how you want, if you are not afraid to experiment and if you don't mind putting some time into programming this, this is the remote you ought to get.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Easier to set up and use than I expected, 18 Jan 2008
The system in our TV room consists of a Flat screen TV, DVD player, Satellite receiver, VCR, surround sound amplifier (for DVD and satellite) and Humax PVR (which is used as the freeview receiver). For some reason my wife doesn't seem to think that she can operate any of these items and has been giving me severe ear ache on the subject "as she'd like to be able to watch TV without needing me to turn it on for her". I therefore ordered the 555 to make life easier for both of us. It arrived yesterday and I was amazed at how easy it was to set up to switch on any of the combinations that I use. What was even more impressive was that if for example I am watching Freeview via the PVR and then want to switch to watching a DVD all the correct devices are switched on or off and the TV moves to the correct input at the touch of one button. As I bought this as a birthday present SWMBO (She who must be obeyed) has not yet used it but I am confident that she will have no problem understanding how to use it. EDIT - The Birthday has now happened - the remote control has been handed over and it has been given approval as "very easy to understand and use" (Phew).
The only tip that I would pass on is that the remote remembers the last combination that you asked it to set up and uses that memory to calculate moving through the settings to the ones next required. If you then use any original remote controls to change anything that you are using the 555 to control the next time that you use the 555 it may not give you the correct result. This is easily dealt with via a help button and once you have re-synchronised the remote with what you want the system to do it then carries on correctly.
Recommendation - once you've got it programmed lock the old remotes in a cupboard to prevent this problem
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well worth the time and money, 21 Jul 2007
My living room had 4 remote controls which as you might imagine was a real pain. I had looked at various universal remotes but non really did it for me, either because not all the functions were covered or in the right place on the handset and so on. I had read lots of good reviews on the Harmony range of remotes from Logitech so I decided on the 555. The majority of buyers raved about this remote control but most had problems with the web access side of things, which is required to run the unit. That being said I still went for it. So far I have not had one single problem with it... It has been excellent, no problems with the internet access, (I'm not saying this to windup those that have had problems!) The remote is totally configurable, just wish I'd bought the bigger one. The only downside is that even if you make one slight change to a button it takes the same amount of time to update your remote as it does to configure the whole thing from scratch. The packaging, whilst it looks nice is a pig to open unless you have some good scissors. The other great thing about the remote is that Logitech has full support for us MAC users, I can highly recommend this remote very much. Buy it!
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