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Harmony Elite and Harmony Hub First Impressions


Pete H

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Broke down and just purchased my first Harmony remote and it's been long overdue.  Denise has complained for years about the number of remotes and trying to do basic switching between directv, fire, stereo, bluray, etc.., and though it never bothered me, having 6 remotes laying around was getting a bit cumbersome.  I purchased the elite and the hub and downloaded the apps this morning, set up my devices and actions (it all took about an hour to get things linked up and loaded), and in that short amount of time, all of my gear and functions are working great.

 

I showed Denise the functions she needs, one button to watch tv, one button for fire tv and a simple choice for listening through the avr or just the tv.  Why did I wait so long.  I've already added some functions and buttons for items that we use constantly, like the guide for directv being the first one on the touch screen and it's all been very straight forward.  Next up is to load the app on her i phone so she doesn't even have to deal with the remote if she doesn't want to.

 

I will follow up after adding more specific functions and getting the echo units to tie in the voice commands, but I'm very impressed at how intuitive this has been and do not regret the purchase at all.

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3 hours ago, Pete H said:

Broke down and just purchased my first Harmony remote and it's been long overdue.  Denise has complained for years about the number of remotes and trying to do basic switching between directv, fire, stereo, bluray, etc.., and though it never bothered me, having 6 remotes laying around was getting a bit cumbersome.  I purchased the elite and the hub and downloaded the apps this morning, set up my devices and actions (it all took about an hour to get things linked up and loaded), and in that short amount of time, all of my gear and functions are working great.

 

I showed Denise the functions she needs, one button to watch tv, one button for fire tv and a simple choice for listening through the avr or just the tv.  Why did I wait so long.  I've already added some functions and buttons for items that we use constantly, like the guide for directv being the first one on the touch screen and it's all been very straight forward.  Next up is to load the app on her i phone so she doesn't even have to deal with the remote if she doesn't want to.

 

I will follow up after adding more specific functions and getting the echo units to tie in the voice commands, but I'm very impressed at how intuitive this has been and do not regret the purchase at all.

That sounds like every post I've ever read that people make when they first buy a universal remote.

 

Glad you like it!

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  • 4 months later...
On 12/12/2018 at 11:41 AM, Pete H said:

Broke down and just purchased my first Harmony remote and it's been long overdue.  Denise has complained for years about the number of remotes and trying to do basic switching between directv, fire, stereo, bluray, etc.., and though it never bothered me, having 6 remotes laying around was getting a bit cumbersome.  I purchased the elite and the hub and downloaded the apps this morning, set up my devices and actions (it all took about an hour to get things linked up and loaded), and in that short amount of time, all of my gear and functions are working great.

 

I showed Denise the functions she needs, one button to watch tv, one button for fire tv and a simple choice for listening through the avr or just the tv.  Why did I wait so long.  I've already added some functions and buttons for items that we use constantly, like the guide for directv being the first one on the touch screen and it's all been very straight forward.  Next up is to load the app on her i phone so she doesn't even have to deal with the remote if she doesn't want to.

 

I will follow up after adding more specific functions and getting the echo units to tie in the voice commands, but I'm very impressed at how intuitive this has been and do not regret the purchase at all.

I have quite the opposite opinion.  I too have multiple remotes (TV, Nvidia Shield, Nakamichi soundbar, Emotiva preamp, Cambridge cxn) and wanted to use the Harmony Elite. 

 

Here's my problem.  The remote does not know when a component is already on.  So when it tries to run an activity, if that component is on, it turns it off while turning the other devices on.  So i'm always trying to ensure everything is on/off properly.

 

Also, it's not good with two activities.  For example, I was listening to 2ch audio through Emotiva preamp....  I wanted to turn the tv on and wait for a program to start, when I ran the "Watch TV" activity, it turned off my Preamp..  

 

Lastly, my Nvidia Shield and Nakamichi soundbar do so many different things (like with surround formats), the Harmony remote is very limited in what it controls - so I still have to keep picking up other remotes.

 

Anyway, I hope it keeps working well for you but if I have to pick up my other remotes more than 1x per week, i'm done!

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