Universal remote recommendations

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I have a pretty complicated A/V setup and for the past 10+ years I’ve used Logitech Harmony remote products. Well, my Harmony One is crapping out and in need of replacement, and unfortunately not only is it not produced anymore, but those that are out there for sale are incredibly expensive.

The other day I bit the bullet and bought a Harmony Ultimate. After using it for a couple of hours I’m of the opinion that it sucks, bad. The ergonomics are awful – there’s a big touch screen in the center, with buttons above and below it. Some of the buttons are overloaded with long press/short press (for example instead of having separate FF and SKIP buttons, there’s a single button where you short press for FF and long press for SKIP… annoying as hell). Crap ergonomics aside, the touch screen and neighboring capacitive buttons (I hate this design trend so fucking much) are constantly being pressed accidentally from just going near them. Getting really nitpicky, it also has this rubbery grippy crap on the bottom that does not feel good in the hand at all.

So, what are my options? The Harmony 950 looks good at first, but it also has that awful long press/short press design to reduce the amount of physical buttons. It’s also really expensive by comparison. I’m not a big fan of the 6xx series – I mean it’s ok – I use one on the bedroom TV – but it has a tiny screen without any touch that can only fit 4 things at a time so it’s not ideal.

Maybe it’s time to ditch the Harmony line completely but I’m not sure what other options there are that are like it from other companies.

Any thoughts from you lovely mutants?

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I used Peel Remote on my phone for a while. I stopped because a) I didn’t love it enough to get the paid version but the ads in the free version were annoying and b) mostly I just pipe everything through Chrome.

But it did work, including with my rather old gear, which impressed me.

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It’s probably not a big option, but I worked for a company that created integrated operating rooms - we would wire up all the electronics and A/V equipment and then put all the controls into a custom touch screen.

There are companies that do this for homes as well. There was one that had a touch screen coffee table that remote controls all the electronics. I thought that was neat.

This is a company I found through search engine that does in home integration. I can’t remember the name of the one we were testing one of their applications for our own use, but I imagine there is something local that has a similar service.

https://www.rticorp.com/markets/residential?scroll-to=1

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I personally like having a line of remotes on the arm of the settee.

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https://goo.gl/images/jiUo1j

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one of the side benefits of having a harmony was that you could buy open box av equipment without worrying too much about not getting a remote.,

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