Harmony 510 universal remote launched at Logitech (Pros and Cons)

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:

• TV power on/off that didn’t work
• Cyclical video input throws the system off (it doesn’t know what the current input is, so it has a hard time switching to the proper new input)
• Incompatibility with non-IR remotes (Vudu)

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.