Review: Logitech Harmony One peripheral

If your lounge is home to more entertainment equipment than just a TV and DVD player, it's likely you also have a bunch of remote controls cluttering up the coffee table.

There are plenty of cheap universal remotes available, but Logitech's Harmony devices take things much further. The Harmony One can replace up to 15 remotes and, like many others in the range, is configured using an online database so there's no need to hunt down codes and enter them into the remote control manually.

Simply hook it up to a PC, pick your devices from a list and wait for the codes to be copied to the remote.
You can also create macros to send multiple commands with one press of a button.

For example if you want to watch a DVD, the Harmony One can, in one sweep, turn the TV on, set it to the correct channel, switch on the surround sound speakers and select the appropriate input, and then power up the DVD player – all with a single touch of a button. The device is well designed, with a 2.2in touch-sensitive screen providing access to device-specific controls.

During our testing it worked fine, although with only six controls able to fit on the screen we were often left to scroll through pages to find the one we were after.

Also consider:

Logitech Harmony 1000

Gyration Media Center Remote

Domia Bye Bye Standby Online