Logitech Harmony 1000 review

Logitech Harmony 1000 Review

Reviewed by: Brian Thomas

Reviewed on: 14 September 2007

Weaknesses
Although configuring the remote via PC is relatively straightforward, it does take quite a long time, and if any of the standard steps need to be tweaked, it will be an even more arduous task. We got lost in a loop of downloading settings to the remote, trying them out and going back to the software to tweak them again before repeating the process. The main issue is that the sync between the software and the remote is quite slow.

Also, although Logitech has added a number of hard buttons to the remote, you'll still need to use the touchscreen for the majority of functions. As a result, this remote suffers from a problem that affects all touchscreen models -- a screen can just never have the same tactile response as real buttons. We had to actually look at the screen to select the button we wanted, whereas with a traditional remote we often subconsciously feel our way to the right button.

This also leads to another issue. When controlling devices with lots of buttons, the remote can become a little bit awkward to use. This is because it has to lay all the various controls out over multiple screens, so for less commonly used features you may have to scroll through three or four screens to get to the right button.

Conclusion
It takes a lot of work to set up the Harmony 1000 properly, so expect to put in a significant amount of time and effort before you arrive at a good configuration for your particular AV setup.

However, once you have got it working properly it really is a very impressive zapper that manages to offer up very powerful features while still being easy to use.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday