Harmony SST-768 HT Remote - Worklog Review

[Joe]

So I got this nifty remote a few weeks ago. I saw them test it on TechTV 7 months ago (the previous version) and was impressed with the technology and the implementation. So once I had the 200+$ available I bought it.

The remote I am talking about is the Harmony SST-768. ( http://www.harmonyremote.com )

Now I am a VERY picky mofo when it comes to home comfort and home theater stuff. Shits gotta work, and work the way I want it to, or I am just pissed. My home theater time is my only time that I can relax and not be occupied with something ( on the computer I am constantly occupied with stuff). This is also the reason I own close to 170 DVD's and adding an average of 2 a week at the current rate . So I figure if the remote does everything it claims, its gotta be worth the coin.. but still fully prepared to be disappointed. ... I am the person with the worst luck on the planet with getting stuff I haven’t tested out in person first.

They claim that via the web this thing will work with every peice of hardware I have (which I have 5 different MFG's of hardware). The DB of all the devices is stored on their servers not on your remote and not on your PC. The remote has its own lil OS burned onto its firmware and via firmware updates the features of the remote can be greatly changed.

The remote has a cool lil jog wheel on the side, with a small Nokia phone size one color LCD at the bottom. It also has 31 hard buttons. Via the LCD you can build functions, menus, and "activities". Via the 31 buttons you can program them to do anything you want, even a string of commands for one button.

Unlike the Sony remotes, and some of the others, this remote isn’t based on device scripting, its based on "Activities". Say you want to watch TV.. you hit a button and boom sets all the inputs on all the devices, powers up the proper ones, powers off the ones that aren’t needed, all with one button push. And all the buttons on the top of the remote and LCD change to what you set them to for that "Activity". To see more about how this all gets setup, go to their "test drive" area on their website. Sorry for no pictures, but I am just typing this for fun.... I had some beer tonight and thought I would share with everyone my thoughts on this lil remote.

SO my first impressions and thoughts on the device after I received it:

Ordering:
You save a SHITLOAD going through other distro's to get them. Harmony shows 299$ on their site, you can get them for 260$ on other "authorized" sites, and 199$ or less on some unauth'd sites and Ebay. Caution.. unauthorized and ebay sales VOID the warranty... which I think is BULL SHIT and I have fought with them over this already... I did get mine through an authorized dealer though. I just thought it was bullshit to revoke a MFG warranty for something like that.

Received:
First thing you notice is how freaking small it is... its no bigger than my old Nokia 5100 series phone, just a bit more ergonomic. It comes with batteries, the USB cable, a CD, and the remote. ( and a lil useless how to guide.. I promptly threw that away.. I mean.. who needs it )

Setting up the remote:
After loading the software and hooking up the remote it automatically spawns a IE session to the harmony config website. There I setup my profile and it asks what hardware you have and how it all works with each other. Make sure you have your model #'s and MFG in hand before doing this. It had my JVC TV, Onkyo Home theater head unit, Sony DVD, Motorola Digital cable box, and JVC SVHS VCR in their DB.. so all was good. Then it comes to setting up the pre-defined activities.

First one is "watching TV" which is asks what input the TV and home theater need to be on, where the audio should be played through, what settings you want it to send, etc.. just the basics to make it work. you do this for Play a DVD and VHS and really anything.

The remote has the ability to control pretty much anything IR... people have it so it closes their blinds when they go to watch a DVD, or can control a Home theater PC, etc.. its extremely versatile, and if you cant do it with their programmed interface you can code the XML code yourself!

With the default setup, everything worked. Took 3 minutes to setup my profile, and base activities, and download it to the remote.

Using the remote:
There was some features that weren’t setup or not in the right location on the remote for me with the default setup... took me a few days of tweaking here and there when I found something I didn’t like or wanted moved, but in the end every button on the remote and every menu was tweaked to my liking. I added advanced controls for my home theater unit in areas that didn’t have them before ( now I can tweak the audio on the home theater while in any mode, etc..) removed some features and menus I didn’t use ( like I removed the downloadable TV schedule... was cool but I didn’t need it due to the Digital cable deal.) I have it set so that when I switch to watching a DVD, it powers up the proper hardware, powers down the extra stuff, switches inputs on the TV/Home theater unit, ejects the current DVD from the player and leaves the tray out, sets the home theater unit to DD or DTS, and sets the Bass/Treble/filters to the levels I want. All with one click. Pretty hot.

I haven’t had to tweak the remote in 2 weeks now... I have got it to a happy place that its just my ultimate toy now. my 5 or 6 other remotes are all in a box in my closet now, and I haven’t used them since getting this remote. The Harmony is a learning remote also, I downloaded some commands from my remotes onto the harmony that weren’t in the Harmony DB.

The Harmony DB is a composite from other people. The more people buy and program their harmony, the more complete the DB is. So my few additions will aid other people who own Onkyo and Sony products.

As far as battery life... I havent had to touch the 4 AA"s in the remote since getting it well over a month and a half ago. Its LCD is backlit and never shuts off ( the backlite does but the LCD itself never does)... it goes into a sleep mode but the LCD always has the last selection or text on it.

It has a feature called "smart state technology" well not really a feature, its more the basis for the remote. It remembers via internal power variables, what state it left all the hardware in. This is so it powers up the proper hardware at the proper time and not just sending blindly the power command. One thing that this does change is that once you start using this remote, you should not tweak the power on devices by hand... if you do the remote doesn’t remember what’s powered or set to what. (Since it may think something is on when its really off)... Never fear though. There is a "help" button that will ask you a series of questions and will help debug what the settings are or should be on every device.. its come in handy a few times.

Picking your Model:
Now here’s the coolest part of all. EVERY harmony remote has ALL these features. The only difference is the amount of buttons on them! I dig having all 31 buttons, but if you just want to use the menus with the jog wheel and use a general button layout, you can get the SST 748 for close to 100$! They also offer the original Harmony remote for 99$ refurb on their site, and you can find them even cheaper. Its got less buttons than the 748 but all the menu/software features of the 768 Memory differences are also notable. The 748 and original have small 1mb or less of memory for TV schedules and the config code. The 768 has 2mb, more than enough for 1 - 2 weeks of TV program schedules if you wanted them.

Conclusion:
Really this is one damn cool piece of hardware, and something I think anyone who considers themselves a home theater geek and a computer geek needs... its sort of the bridge between the 2 worlds I think it was worth every penny, I havent seen a home theater device that just was so well refined as this before. Also their tech support is top notch, I clicked a button saying I had an issues with the last change made ( it prompts that question every time you download to the remote) 30 minutes later I had an email from a Harmony tech asking what the issues was and if I needed help. Customer service is a dead art, and any time I see even a hint of it I am DAMN impressed... This alone would be the reason I keep the remote even if it didnt work quite like I wanted.

Warning though... if you cant program the clock on your VCR you wont be able to understand this remote. It does take a sort of computer/website/geekdom thing to be able to flow with, for me it was simple and straight forward. I dont think its the kind of gift your grand parents or mom would dig; it would just frustrate the hell out of them. Being a geek I was happy to put the time into customizing it to do exactly what I wanted, something most people wont like doing if they bought it to see an instantly reduction in how much they need to fool with the remote.

SO thats my first Worklog review now back to beer...

[Joe]

The remote:



Every button including the jog wheel and the button next to it can be programmed to do what ever you want

The LCD:
The TV Activity

The Favotie channels list... Harmony downloads a list of all the stations your cable box carries and lets you choose which ones you want on the hot list. makes it easy to jog to the station you want to get to. Yes theres more on that list, I just happened to be watching the Discovery Channel at the time


The DVD Activity

All the actions for this activity are bound to buttons. Titles and such for everything can be changed, hence it doesn't come with Beyatch as a pre-programmed word in the original setup

[iceheart]

Cool.

[Buster]

I have been considering this remote for quite sometime now. Thanks for the review Joe, now Im sold. I was unsure if it was going to serve my needs, its nice to see a review by someone who has used one and is pleased with it.
Now off to the web to hunt one down ....

[Joe]

Glad you liked it Yeh I like the idea of being able to do everything with just one hand ( so if you are drinking a beer you dont need to interupt your drinking just to change a channel) I looked at the sony, H Kardon, and a few others. They were nifty but either too expensive, too complex, or just too damn big to be used. The sony bastards required 2 hands just to hold the mofo and a third hand to change a channel. It also required a small team of NASA rocket scientists to program in all the hardware

[Game_Ender]

That is a really cool product. I have used something like it, except it was a wireless touchpanel. The neat thing was it was tied into the crestron control system, which controlled everything in the theater. The touchpanel is just the interface with the control box using radio. The box does all the talking to the to the devices. It uses little IR transmitters that are taped to the device, or and serial port on the back. The setup i used enabled you to control the lights (even diming), curtains and devices. It had activities like Harmony remote, but when you went into each mode (DVD for example) the touch panel would display a custom set of controls for that equipment. It does take a NASA team to program (but if you can afford the system you can afford to pay someone to set it up). You would probally need to higher a professional to set it up.

[Joe]

Crestron stuff is hot hot hot.. but damn expensive I have seen them used at some church setups I helped wire up a few years ago.

And the harmony will do the same. you can have custom menus setup on each activity.. but not the nice graphical setup like the crestron.

[Joe]

harmony just released a lower end but cooler looking with some cool features model. for only 199$ quite nice.

[Joe]

Update:

Just had to replace the batteries. The ones that were in it were generic non alk. batts. and they lasted like 4 months or more. not bad.

[superart]

would you say its better than the pronto? I was thinking about maybee buying that.

[Joe]

I played with the Pronto at a friends house. Its all about how you think. My brain works perfect with the Harmony, the website is extremely logical and easy under stand and just fun to setup. the Pronto... I didnt like, first of all too bulky compared to the rather very small Harmony, and I felt a bit restricted with it. The harmony sorta smokes it with the whole XML aspect, and the way it links stuff effortlessly as functions and actions is much better than the pronto.

but I say try both if you can and see what works for you.

[vnavone]

Have you used this remote with Tivo? I'm wondering how it would work with interface navigation - doesn't look like enough buttons.