Is the Harmony One worth the extra over the Harmony 555

[admin_exported]

I want to get a new remote to operate all my stuff
and these two remotes seem to be the most popular
So I am torn between them...but the Harmony One is a fair bit more expensive than the 555
but is it worth it for the extra features?

If you have a H One whay did you go for it over the less expensive 555 ?

 

[Andy Clough]

I have the 555, but to be honest would rather have The One.

 

[professorhat]

I can tell you why I didn't go for the One - it's missing the coloured buttons (red, green, yellow and blue) as actual physical buttons. I use these all the time with my PVR and TV and, although you can obviously have them available on the touch screen, it would have been a pain to have to scroll through these when needed. So I went for the 555.
Of course if you rarely use the coloured buttons, this wouldn't be a concern, but just a thought!

 

[Anonymous]

Andy Clough:I have the 555, but to be honest would rather have The One.

and your reasons Andy ?

 

[Juzzie Wuzzie]

I have the 525 and have programmed the four colour buttons to be the top screen buttons to get around the issue below. I like this remote, and unlike other pieces of my kit, don't feel the need to upgrade. It does everything I need it to, and if it doesn't I'm only 3mtrs away from the system.

 

[gsyx123]

I've had the 895 for about 2 years now, with no problems what so ever. I like the programability and ease of use, But it does take a little while to fine-tune it to get it as you want it (which is done on the computer). The only downside is (as you rightly say) the cost.

The next model down still has the coloured buttons for use with teletext and Sky+. You can get one here for about £90.

http://www.wewantstuff.com/shop.php?i=B000CZ0PEE

I had a Philips Pronto before that, but compared to these, they are ugly and cumbersome.

Hope this helps.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi

I have the 525 which I got for £30 on ebay and i think its great! even the wife likes using it!!

Only problem I have had was when I bought one of those power saving multi sockets it used an IR reciever to see the tv remote switch off (which worked) unfortunately though once the tv was on if I selected another activity everything switched off!

So the socket went and the remote stayed !

Great bit of equipment.

Bc.

 

[Andy Clough]

colinbw:Andy Clough:I have the 555, but to be honest would rather have The One.

and your reasons Andy ?

Find the 555 a bit slow to respond to commands sometimes. Not a major problem, just a minor irritation.

 

[Anonymous]

Find the 555 a bit slow to respond to commands sometimes. Not a major problem, just a minor irritation.

and you know the One is quicker responding as it's been tested by WHF ?

 

[Anonymous]

I finally got around to buying a Harmony One and am very impressed with it
It's just so configurable.
They say in the manual set aside half an hour to set it up but it takes
far longer than that to get it right if you have a number of devices to set up.
I needed to tweak it quite a few times.
At the moment it's about 98% there.

 

[Andy Clough]

Hi Colinbw

Having tried out the Harmony One at the office, I finally got round to buying one for myself. Yes, it took a bit longer than expected to set up, mainly because I have a very new Yamaha AV amp that it didn't recognise at first, but all sorted now and it's fab.

Doesn't bother me at all that the red/green/blue/yellow buttons for the TV are on the touch-screen rather than being physical buttons. And it's much more consistent in operating all the micros correctly, unlike my old 555. Well worth the investment, I'd say.

 

[Andy Grange]

Just out of interest where did you buy yours from? I'm looking for one as cheap as possible, I may even wait until the New Year to get one as I imagine I could pick one up in a sale somewhere.

 

[Andy Clough]

Hi Andy

I picked mine up at the What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision Show back in November, when they were selling them at a special show price of £90. Don't know if it's still available at that price, but probably worth waiting for the New Year sales.

 

[d4v3pum4]

I would recommend the One over the 555 any day of the week. The buttons on the 525/555 models are clicky and annoying and although they work, they don't work as well as the One. I know that the One doesn't have coloured buttons but you don't need to scroll at all, when you select for example Watch Sky HD as your activity, they appear on the front page and you can always map them to the hard buttons if you wish. If the coloured buttons don't appear for your equipment e.g. PVR or DVD Recorder, you can work around this by adding Sky HD (or Sky +) as your main device in your activity and then map the coloured buttons to the coloured buttons on your PVR and basically delete all the sky functions. I know that sounds like a lot of faffing around but you only do it once. I started with a Pronto remote, then the 525 and now the One and I can safely say the One is the best remote I've ever owned and if you have any problems Logitech or forums usually turn up the answer. Logitech's customer service is also second to none and can actually customise your setup for you should you need to.

Great bit of kit

 

[matengawhat]

Andy Grange:Just out of interest where did you buy yours from? I'm looking for one as cheap as possible, I may even wait until the New Year to get one as I imagine I could pick one up in a sale somewhere.

£80 at play at the moment

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/5890825/Logitech-Harmony-One-Advanced-Universal-Remote/Product.html

 

[Anonymous]

Andy Grange:Just out of interest where did you buy yours from? I'm looking for one as cheap as possible, I may even wait until the New Year to get one as I imagine I could pick one up in a sale somewhere.

Mine was bought on Amazon at 89 uk pounds
I very nearly bought it at £104 pounds there but got delayed for some reason or other
and when I finally got around to it saw it had dropped to the new amount.
It normally happens the other way around for me...lol

 

[Anonymous]

Might also be worth looking at the Harmony 785 (£79.99 at Play), has the coloured text buttons and a colour screen. Also looks pretty good to me.

I'm hoping Santa brings me one of these as I also want the coloured "teletext" buttons for Sky+usage.

A.