Published on 10/ 6/2008
Even though the Harmony line of universal remotes are "popular" for this category of devices, I don't think that they are anywhere close of reaching "mass market" status. At $99, the Harmony 510 is Logitech's most affordable unit. It can control up to five devices and can be configured with Logitech's guided online setup that lets you access a huge database of presets for all kinds of devices. However, I need to set your expectations: even with the database, it's not always easy to get things right. Issues that I've bumped into in the past (with the Harmony One) include:
To be fair, I think that it's a really hard problem, and the user-driven database approach is a good one. The software interface needs a lot of work, in my opinion, and I think that Logitech is working hard on it.