Logitech Harmony 890 Remote

I have moved recently and the new master bedroom got an A/V make over. I wanted a HD Plasma TV with at least 720p with HD content. After getting everything setup I ran into a slight problem. The sleigh bed foot board blocked line of slight to the components and with interference from the Plasma our Harmony 659 was giving both my wife and I fits. While I love the Harmony Remotes it was clearly time to retire the Harmony 659.

The Equipment

So what did I setup in the master bedroom. First was looking for a Plasma TV. I settled on a Vizio P42HDTV. OK they are not the best but I could not justify to my wife a Pioneer 4280 or Pioneer 950 for a bedroom. OK I am cheating a little as I already owned a Vizio for our apartment in Redmond. I have had this unit for almost 2 years without any problems. If it does go out you can bet I will get the wife drunk so she will agree to let me get a Pioneer 4280 or even a Pioneer 5080 as we have the space.

Next was deciding on what to get to deliver HD content. In Houston that means DirectTV, Dish, or Comcast. Since we live in a building I did not really want satellite. So unfortunately, that left Comcast Houston. I say unfortunately as Comcast is still correcting all the Time Warner infrastructure from its acquisition include their set top boxes. Comcast has not upgraded to the very sweet Motorola DVR that I had in Redmond. They still are using the Scientific Atlantic HD DVR which is dare I say - crap. Hopefully, it will be corrected in a year or so. One bit of good news. We are getting a price hike in exchange for 10 HD Channels additional channels and an upgrade to the pathetic on demand that Time Warner had but I digress. In addition, I decided at a minimum I wanted to be able to play HD DVD and up converted DVDs.

So now I had

• Vizio P42HDTV
• Scientific Atlantic HD DVR
• Toshiba A2 HD DVD Player - see review. I am also looking to replace this with a 2nd generation dual format player this Christmas. I want to watch The 5th Element in HD which requires BluRay.
• Psyclone HDMI selector - I do not recommend the Psyclone right now. The A2 and the Psyclone do not get along. After 5 minutes the Psyclone decides that the A2 is not sending a signal and stops signaling the TV. I am hoping the new A2 firmware upgrade will fix this as there is a patch included to fix issues with HDMI and the A2. Also if you are getting a newer Plasma most have at least 2 HDMI connections.

Choosing a Remote

There are several RF Remotes to chose from including remotes from Logitech and Universal Remote. I actually have an old MX600 and our old master bedroom used the MX600 to control the A/V. All the A/V equipment other than the TV was built into an A/V cabinet in another room. However after using the Harmony remote my wife did not want to go back. The Harmony remotes definitely pass the non A/V fanatic spouse test. That left the Harmony 1000 and Harmony 890. I don't like the thought that I might have to look at the remote to control it neither did my wife. That just left the Harmony 890.

The remote comes with a rechargeable battery, charging station and USB cable to program it.

The base can have the cable come out the top or bottom. In addition, the new version of the 890 has modifications to the charging pins. The older ones where recessed slightly and many owners complained that the slightest vibration would cause the remote and charger to become disconnected. I decide to violently shake the table. While shaking the remote would stop charging but once I stopped it would start charging again.

In addition to the remote and base the package included a RF IR flasher with 4 paired IR emitters. You use the same USB cable to program the RF module. With this RF module you can use it to flash the IR codes or discretely send an IR to an emitter. I chose to hide the RF module under the bed. One thing to note that while the remote can support up to 16 devices the RF module can only support 8 devices per module. Fortunately you can buy another module.

Programming the Remote

The 890 is program just like other Harmony Remotes using software that connects to Harmony's servers. The Harmony servers hold your remote configurations and a database of IR codes for a huge library of devices including A/V gear and even Z-Wave devices.

I am fortunate as the only thing I have to do is convert the 659 remote to the 890 and assign all but the TV to the RF module.

If you are starting from scratch it is recommended that you do IR only programming until everything is setup the way you want it. Then modify the final setup to move devices to the RF module. You will need to set aside a couple of hours mostly for testing and tweaking.

If you have never used the Harmony remotes unlike other remotes that are device oriented these remote are activity oriented. An activity might be watch TV i.e. cable, or watch a movie or listen to music. This makes much more sense for most people. I want to watch cable not control the cable box.

To program the remote you tell the software what devices you have. In addition, you let it know it know how devices are connected. If a device is missing the software and remote are capable of learning from the original device remote. So for example I have the A2 and DVR connected by HDMI to the Psyclone. Next you tell the software what activities you want to do and what devices are involved. That's it, the software will figure out how to control things. If you want you can fine tune it but I found that for most systems that is not necessary.

You can see from above with our current setup you can watch TV i.e. cable or DVR, watch a DVD whether HD or normal DVD, and finally listen to a CD. I in the final setup I added our alarm clock as well which can be controlled by IR.

To switch the remote from the 659 to the 890 I simple went to manage remotes and told it to swap out the remote. The software requests you attach the remote via USB. That's it. It goes out figures out what you have, updates the remote and programs it. This is the equivalent of Apple's iPod and iTunes but for remotes a simple painless experience for people more interested in using the device than programming it.

Not All Rosy

There are a couple of issues with Harmony remotes that you should be aware. The first is that if you have multiple remotes you will have to have multiple accounts. The only exception is authorized dealers who can get a special account and software to handle multiple clients and multiple remotes. Come on Logitech the average family has 2 1/4 TVs. And when you talk about a remote that controls Z-Wave - I suspect we are not talking John Q public. I think it is stupid to make me have multiple accounts.

The other item I wish they would change is have the USB connects for the Remote and the RF module setup the same. Right now they are 180 degree rotation for the connectors. Not a big deal but kind of thoughtless when you are setting changing the USB connector from Remote to RF module back to Remote.

Of course the only thing missing at this point is a XBox 360 - honey here have some Jack Daniels!