![]() Remember, with older top-of-the-line Harmony remotes, what a pain it was to have to plug in not only the remote but its wireless extender? That’s all gone, and good riddance. You can then make most of your changes via the remote, without ever again having to link it to your computer. The setup procedure gets the remote connected to your Wi-Fi network. Harmony’s new website makes this relatively easy if you get stumped, you can call the consumer-support line, which is one of the best and most helpful in the industry. If you’re new to Harmony, you’ll need to set up an account and configure your remote by putting in codes for all of your devices, then setting up your Activities. Only one or two of my settings didn’t make the jump, and were easily added. If you’ve already set up an account on My Harmony and have settings for a Touch remote already in play, you can transfer those settings to the Ultimate. After getting used to it, I have found this vertical storage much more intuitive and natural than the old horizontal cradles, and it has a much smaller footprint. The charging station, apparently the same as that used for the Touch, cradles the remote in a vertical position. Each Blaster measures 1.5”L x 1”W x 0.5” thick, with a connecting cable 8’ long. The Mini Blaster essentially extends the range of your Harmony remote’s infrared signals. Since the prices of these different configurations run from $99.99 to $349.99, you might say the new line is affordable to almost everyone. The Hub will work with the Harmony Touch, and is available for sale separately ($99.99), or with an app that allows you to use your smartphone or iPod Touch instead of a Touch or Ultimate remote. On the front are LEDs that indicate power on/off these light up when the Hub is receiving information. Also on the back is a button for pairing or resetting. ![]() ![]() The word “Harmony” is centered on its top, and on the back are an input for the AC cord and two ports for plugging in the Mini Blasters. It measures 5” x 4”, has beveled edges, and is about 1” high, with a sleek, black, semitransparent surface that in my room collected dust faster than has any electrostatic filter device intended for that purpose. The Harmony Ultimate Hub “turns RF signals from the remote control into IR and Bluetooth commands your home-theater devices can understand,” says Harmony's website. There is, however, one big difference from the Touch: a bulge on the Harmony’s bottom, about 2” from the front end, that guides the hand forward so that the thumbs can more easily reach the hard buttons - play, pause, skip, and record - above the screen. The battery is still not serviceable by the consumer when it dies, the device dies. The Ultimate looks just as sleek and gleaming, has the same buttons, and the icons for each Activity and device can still be customized. The Harmony Ultimate itself looks almost identical to the Touch it’s the same size (7.25”L x 2.25”W x not quite 1” thick), though at 4.8 ounces it weighs slightly less than the Touch’s 5.7 ounces. Included with the Harmony Ultimate ($349.99 USD) are a Harmony Hub, two IR Mini Blasters, a charging station, a USB cable, two AC adapter cords, a start-up manual, and warranty information. Now comes the Harmony Ultimate, in which almost everything left unfinished in the Touch is resolved. It's been running pretty much flawlessly for months.Last March, I gave the Logitech Harmony Touch universal remote control a positive review, but noted some things that might be improved. I found out the hard way that trying to run one script while another is still looping makes things go pear-shaped. I did have to add a step to each script to first stop any of the other Home Theater scripts that are running. It loops this until all the devices are on. If not, it sends the necessary commands to the errant device(s). The script runs through each sequence, waits 20 seconds, and if all the devices are on, it stops. I use a power-sensing plug for each device, and have HA consider the device ON when the watts are above a certain value. Send all the commands, and assume they were received and properly executed, with the crappy Help button that rarely fixed things. I never liked the "spray and pray" that the Harmony used. Each activity has a tab with its relevant commands, with a main tab for selecting which activity you want to start. I use a refurbished Fire 7 tablet as my "remote". It's tedious, but you don't have to teach it every code for every device. I had to teach it all the relevant codes from each remote (you can use your current Harmony remote to do this).
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