Universal Remote Help!

this is what I have:
home theater master

it does macros as well - essentially a sequence of commands. For example you can program a single button to turn on your tv, switch your pre-amp to av and turn on your digi-box (and anything else that might need switching on).

I've got the MX-700 and I can highly recommend the Home Theatre Master remotes. Easy to program and yet highly featured.

Roy.

I'v ehad two Home Theater Masters, the lastest the MX-600. I replaced it with a Harmony and have never looked back. I'm an IT techy guy so didn't find the HTM a problem to program, but the Harmony was just sooo easy and it has the magic 4 coloured buttons for Sky that Americans just can't understand why we want them.

Well, I have jumped in and ordered a Harmony 885
, the constant thumbling through a pile of remotes to operate the AV gear has been driving me spare!
Looking forward to 1 remote on the coffee table

Nice colour display and charging station included.

I don't think you'll regret it. I have tried many including prontos and manuafacturers own and non I found as easy to program and use as the Harmony. My missus can use it too, which is a bonus!

will the harmony 885 work with sky digibox

Yes no problem, that new one pictured also seems to have the 4 coloured buttons that are so useful too.

A-Ha the colour coded buttons, that's the difference! Well after this review and another friends recommendation I bought the Harmony 880. I looked back at this thread to see you were talking about the 885 and I didn't see that model when looking at the Candian site. The only difference I can see between them is the lack of colour coded buttons on my 880 so I suppose those colour coded buttons have been put on for the UK (possibly European market) for Sky only!

I've only had it a few hours, it was ok to set up, but a bit of pain with the NAC202, it seems to think that mute is on off and all the inputs were messed up (switching to av, it went to aux2, switching to CD went to tuner), so after a while of it learning it's ok now. Other than that it was good, the wizards step you through each step, e.g for watching tv it asks what device you use for video, which channel it needs to be on, which device you use for sound etc.

It has replaced a philips pronto and the only thing that has over the set up of it is that it is easier to do fine control over the steps if wanted/needed. So far I haven't needed to and I'm not sure if you can with the Harmony, also the Harmony set up is web based so it's best to have a broadband connection.

Once it's set up I also prefer it over the pronto. The harmony has physical buttons so you can feel it in the dark/when not looking at the remote, you don't need to press it twice to get it to work (one to turn it on, the next to do the desired action) with a touch screen.

The harmony fits in the hand nicely like a normal remote, the pronto was quite large. The 880 (and I assume the 885) has a motion senso so that when you pick it up it lights up rather than when you push a button.

quote:

I suppose those colour coded buttons have been put on for the UK (possibly European market) for Sky only!

TV ceefax too.

Howard

Thinking of getting the Logitech Harmony 895 to replace a Theatre Master that's getting a bit knackered. Any further thoughts or suggestions? I'm interested by the 'out of line of sight' feature which I hope will save me the walking back and forth with my Graaf amp.

Thanks

Harry

I've been using my harmony 880 (similar to uk 885) for several weeks now. In general it's been pretty good. It reduces the amount of remotes you need and I'm still happy with it, but there are a few problems:

• It's doesn't really do macro's. It does macro's when starting an "activity" - i.e. turning on all needed components and switching to correct inputs. If anything goes wrong you hit the help button and it asks you a series of q's (e.g. is the tv on) to figure out what went wrong. This can take time so I tried to make a few macro's to handle common situations and it didn't work in all cases, thier support line says they don't support this, but it does in some cases.
  
• All programming of the device is done online, it is fine (and quick) for the initial setup, but fine tuning it is a pain, it takes a while to cycle through all the pages even with broadband.
  
• On the 880 there is a screen at the top where there are 8 custom buttons (you can have more than 8 since you can cycle through screens). You can't put the buttons in any order, it just picks an order for you and if you put on a custom button for you TV in the watch TV activity, it will appear in all activities in which your TV is involved.
  
• Controlling my VCR is hard since I need 2 sets of numbers and arrow keys, one to control the VCR and one to control the digital box. It is easy to play a video, but hard to set up to record.
  

I hope I haven't sounded too negative since I do like it and I find it better than a philips pronto. My major plus points for it (mainly over the pronto which it replaced):

• It fits in the hand nicely and can be operated one handed
  
• It has a tilt sensor so it lights up when you pick it up
  
• it has physical buttons so you can feel the buttons to press. After the pronto I don't like touch screen remotes.
  
• it comes with a slim charging station.
  

I can add another vote for the 885 - it replaced a pronto for me and I've not looked back. (controlling amongst other things a Sky+ box, a squeezebox 2 and an AV2). If Logitech have kept the basic features the same in the 895 but added wireless it should be a killer remote for the price.

I did a writeup of the 885 here if you want some more info and screenshots of the programming interface.

Wireless to IR is what I'm interested in. Could solve the problem of line of sight difficulties I have with on component. Available in the UK in around three weeks they tell me.

Cheers

Harry