I have been a user of a Harmony 880 as pictured on the right for around a year now and it has made life for my wife(important!) and I much easier. No longer did I need to have 9 remotes on the coffee table to control my components, as this remote can do it all.

Logitechs range of Harmony Universal remotes is growing larger, allowing you to find a remote which suits your needs and your budget.

There are many Universal remotes available on the market, ranging in price from a few dollars, into the thousands. Logitechs range is very good value for money and suitable for the regular home user or home theatre enthusiast.

Harmony remotes let you control all of your devices individually, which is alright, though any universal remote will let you do this. What makes Harmony remotes different from some of the cheaper options, is the ability to set up activities which let you press one button to do a task. For example, if you want to watch a DVD, you can program the remote to turn on your TV, AV receiver and DVD player, set them all to the right input sources and play the DVD.

To update the information on the remote we used to use a web interface which was slow and cumbersome. The community requested an easier way to update the remotes. Logitech has answered the call by releasing desktop software to do the job, making updating these remotes much quicker and easier. The software still accesses the web, but it is a huge improvement. 

I cleared my remote and started creating all of the devices and activities again yesterday and it took around 4 hours to get the remote working right. This was mostly due to the way my television selects input sources. For most equipment, the process will take only a couple of hours as the remotes support a huge range of home entertainment appliances. You may have to teach it some commands from the original remotes but this is a simple process.

Once your remote is setup, you will rarely need to make changes to it. It is worth storing your user name and password somewhere safe, as you may not need it again for a couple of years.

Get the software from the Logitech website. If your remote is not listed, download the software of the closest matching remote. I.e. I downloaded the 785 software for my 880 remote and the software identified my remote correctly.