Logitech Harmony 550 Remote

Like most people we have at least 4 remotes in our house that we use as a matter of course. TV, DVD, A/V AMP, PVR. So if we wanted to watch a DVD for instance we would first have to switch input on the TV to HDMI, then switch input on the A/V then turn the DVD on and press play. Now as a user experience it’s painful. far too much work involved. So when I heard about the series of intelligent remotes from Logitech, and the fact that Don Norman has even written about it, I opted for the mid-range 550 model.

The Harmony 550 is a universal remote with some clever twists. Set-up is via your computer, via the web (more on that in a minute). Connect the USB cable to your Mac or PC, answer s few questions about your system - make, model etc and it gets magically set-up. So all you then have to do is press “watch DVD” and pow - the remote switches inputs where it needs too and can even press play on the DVD. Wanna watch TV? No problem. Just hit “watch TV” and it does its thing.

So beyond the hype, did it actually work? Well yeah it did - eventually. You see, on the Mac installation at least there’s a gaping hole in the instructions on how to set it up. On reading the very short instructions it says to insert the CD and install the software. Then when it’s installed the app will boot-up. Well the thing is it does do exactly that. But nothing else. The app fires up and just sits there. No menu items (apart from a prefs menu) and no windows. Nothing. It just sits there. So I thought, hmmm, try and download an update. But that didn’t help either. I searched the instructions but that was it.

So I thought to myself. Hang on. The instructions say to goto preferences and set the download folder to the same one as Safari. Why would it need that? So I tried my luck and went to the only web address I could find in the instructions - the one it listed for support. On going to members.harmonyremote.com I found I needed to set up a user account. And then guess what. After doing that, I was then presented with the option to set up my remote! At no point in the instructions does it say to go to a web site! At no point does the software boot up Safari and take you there. AGGGHHHHHHH. It was all guess work on my part.

So after about 2 hours I had the remote working. And it does work really well. It’s just that this gaping hole in the instructions could have rendered this nice little product null and void!