Harmony Remotes vs 622 remote

[cmcnabb]

My life's quest has been to find the "one" remote that would control all of the electronics in our home. The Harmony has filled the bill quite well. We have a Harmony 520 and it controls the DVR functions on the 622 just fine.

 

[EricBskiVT]

I use an 880 on my 622. i tried the other day to use the VIP remote, and found it to be a pain. page up/down is a really big pain. The 880 lets me control the critical stuff (guide, info, cancel, page up/down, cursor, volume/mute, channels, pause, FF, rew) all within the reach of my thumb. i set up the custom buttons so that Live and DVR are the bottom two of the 8 custom buttons, and i'm all set that way. only thing i really have to reach for is PIP and PIP swap on the row above Live and DVR.

I just ordered an 880 to replace the 520 my wife doesn't like (too small). What do you mean by Live and DVR? I would really like to set up the 880 so my wife is happy using it for everything.

 

[jrp]

Our Harmony is mostly for just switching between modes (satellite, xbox 360, ps3, dvd player, another dvd player, htpc, regular tv, play ipod, play radio). When we're in satellite mode, the wife prefers to use the VIP remote for it all (it plays, pauses, and does volume up/down/mute on the stereo).

I have our 880 programmed to do all these things. It runs the 622, a/v receiver, tv, vcr(once in a blue moon), dvd and my son's x box when he hooks it up to the system. It handles volume, mute and all the pvr & dvd functions admirably.

 

[GregE]

I just ordered an 880 to replace the 520 my wife doesn't like (too small). What do you mean by Live and DVR? I would really like to set up the 880 so my wife is happy using it for everything.

He means the 880 doesn't have a hard button for Live TV or for the DVR. He programmed some of the 8 buttons to do those features. I did the same thing but I assigned the DVR to the asterisk button in addition to one of the 8. My one up there actually presses DVR and then a 1 to take me right to my recordings.

 

[cparker]

I made "DVR" a soft button up top and did the same with "LiveTV". If I made it the asterisk, someone at my house would not be able to find it.

The 880 handles everything. I think all my equipment is in my sig. The point for ME is that my whole family can operate everything. They don't need to know which piece of equipment needs to be set to which input or output or any of that stuff.

I even made soft buttons for DVRtoDVD and TVtoDVD so they can record stuff from either of those onto DVD. We recently started transferring really old home movies that were compiled from 8mm onto VHS tapes and now we're putting them onto DVDs with separate titling for each segment, etc...... New Activity... soft buttons where needed..... awesome.

If it's controlled by IR... the Harmony seems able to handle anything I've asked of it.

 

[redman042]

Get the Monster AVL300 remote instead of the Logitech 890. The Monster remotes use the Harmony programming software just like the Logitechs. The Monster has a much better design though. Doesn't look quite as "sleek" in photos, but when you hold one in your hand, you'll see what I mean. It has nice big buttons along the sides of the screen, not those tiny thin buttons on the Logitechs.

Otherwise I think they are functionally very similar. I believe the Monster is a better deal because it comes with the RF receiver.

I use my Monster remote with a 722 DVR, and it works great. All the functions we normally use are available as real buttons, except that I custom-mapped the Enter button to function as the DVR button (to bring up the DVR menu), plus there's a soft-button for that on the screen.

 

[navychop]

At almost twice the street price of the Harmony. Go read the "1 star" review on Amazon.

 

[mainstream]

You need the 890PRO or the 1000 with IR extender. It will let you change locations or have mutliple remotes. Dish is working on releasing IR codes for TV2 as per my conversation with them at CEDIA. Hopfully soon!