The Logitech Harmony 720 : Full Feature!

As any tech geek would tell you, there are so many possibilities for remote controls in your house. If you actually had a remote control for everything in your house that could use one — you’d have to have a table for your remotes separate from every other surface in your house. It’d be straight damn ridonkulous. Yes, I used that word. You know what other made-up phrase I want to use? Tigol Bitties.

The Harmony 720 combines every possible need for a remote control in your media center and takes away the frustration of shuffling through dozens of remotes, emptying your pockets and constantly replacing batteries and fiddling to find out which button does what. Quite simply, it’s the Remote of the Gods. With it’s very simple PC/Mac program - you can program which functions you want on your remote by simply typing the codes in that it asks for (It even gives you examples of how to obtain these codes.) and you’re done. I had my codes put in within five minutes after a quick fact-finding mission around my house. Generally with those random Universal Consolidator remotes, it’s like giving yourself a lobotomy to get those codes in the remote. They’re never the right ones - EVER. With the Harmony, if the code doesn’t seem correct when you go to test it, a helpful menu comes up and fixes the booboo for you.

It was quite interesting to point the remote at the television, press the button and not see it come on. Figuring all was lost, I groaned and stood up to go back to my PC but then I looked down and saw a question on the LCD screen. “Is the TV on?”, it asked me. I pressed the corresponding button for “No” and it… magically turned it on. It then mused, “Is it on now?” - as if it was mocking me. “Yeah, see? I did that. With my mind. My robot mind.”. That’s just a small beauty that is encoded into the Harmony, because there are so many other features that tout it’s praises. With a full set of programmable buttons (Which is very damn necessary when you’ve got your PS2’s DVD function loaded into the remote. The PS2 default keymap is kind of obnoxious on the LCD screen.) and a soft hint of blue that lights up your remote’s keys for you at night, it’s completely newbie friendly for those guests you have over.

A few things seemed out of sorts but not worth refusing the Harmony altogether. The charging dock for it seemed a bit too slickened and it took some getting used to when placing it for it’s recharge. In order to utilize the more geek-saavy features on the remote, you have to know your way around a computer. You can upload pictures for a slideshow as well as backgrounds for the menu on the remote but the resolution looks silly unless you crop them specifically for the sizing of the LCD (128×160). I was half bemused by the fact there was a motion sensor in it that turns on the remote when you pick it up and half giddy over it. Honestly, wouldn’t a simple button press be fine? Does the simple act of picking it up need to function the power button for us? Still, it’s neat.

A lot of people come out of the gate dismissing the Harmony as just some overly-expensive remote that nobody needs. To me though, the Harmony represents the true direction of where home media peripherals are headed. Complete and utter programming function makes this remote a godsend in the realm of technology for a simple life. Condensing your useless electronics and bringing it into something that makes your life easier and gives it a new zest to the mundane little things in your world.

Who wouldn’t want a remote control with Jedi powers? (Don’t sue me, George Lucas. Kthnx.)

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( For my own personal view on the Harmony 720 - Check out my blog entry! )