» Logitech Harmony 676 Universal Remote Control

Logitech Harmony 676 Universal Remote Control Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Features are great--until it stops working. . .
Comment: Just had to add my two cents to everyone else's reviews. I fully agree that the functionality of this remote is excellent. I used it to replace a TV, cable box, receiver, and CD/DVD changer remotes. Setup is a breeze with the USB interface, and the remote did exactly what I wanted it to do and had good range as well. Great deal for the price I paid--was only $50 when I bought it.

Having said that, however, I am pretty disappointed with the longevity of the remote. I have owned it just over one year now, and yesterday the majority of the buttons just flat out stopped working. The off button still works, but the rest (channels, volume, device macros) all will not control any of my devices. I realize we live in a throwaway electronic society, but I would have expected more out of this remote control. It's possible I may have just gotten a bad chip or something, but given some of the other reviews on here, it seems to be somewhat of a systematic problem.

To sum up, it's a great product, especially for the price, but just be aware that it may not last as long as you would like.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: 5 stars while it lasts...
Comment: Initially I would easily have given this remote 5 stars. I told everyone how fun it was to program and how great it worked as a universal remote. Imagine how nice it is to hit an activity button like TV or DVD, and then all of your components turn on and automatically turn to the correct setting.

That 5 star rating has degraded to about 2 maybe 1 star about a year and a half later when the most commonly used buttons wore out and either never work or you have to use your finger nail and push really hard on the buttons. I don't believe this remote was over-worked or abused in that time. I actually kind of babied it because of it's price and how much I liked it.

I guess when I purchased a $150 remote I expected it to last at least 3 years.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but not lasting
Comment: I've owned this model for two years now, so I'll review the problems I've encountered. Others have described the positive aspects and the operation of the unit, so I won't repeat them, but don't interpret that as an indictment of this model.

The biggest problem I've faced is that the key contacts on this remote are simply not built to last. The buttons you use most WILL wear down much faster than the ones you use less. When this happens, the worn buttons will start to occasionally fail to make contact. The first few times a button fails, you think you somehow missed it, but it quickly gets worse and you have to press the button more than once to get it to work. As it continues to worsen, the button works only if you wiggle it or jam it down. This makes using the remote a very frustrating experience. And yes, I could reprogram a different button to do what the broken one does, but that would screw up the layout, and the layout is an integral part of the experience. Mine is at a point where I need to replace it and it doesn't seem reasonable to me that an $80 remote should last only 2 years. It makes me hesitate to get a more expensive Logitech model.

The second problem is minor, but might be confusing for some users. When you program the 6 buttons around the screen, the software sometimes rearranges the order of the buttons. There's a pattern to the shuffling, so natural problem solvers will figure it out and play along, but some users won't want to bother with puzzles. It's my understanding that the higher end Logitech models use the same configuration software, so I'm not sure if upgrading would fix it.

Lastly, this isn't so much a problem as something you should be aware of. The backlighting is fully configurable. You can turn it to manual or set how long it stays on after you hit a button. The issue is that if it's used at all, the battery life takes a serious beating. This isn't Logitech's fault; it's just basic physics.

Aside from the disappointment of throwing away an $80 remote after 2 years, this is still a great little product.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Just what I wanted in a remote!
Comment: I won't waste your time with a long detailed list of all the Harmony's features, you can find those all over. What I will tell you is that this remote is super easy to set up with on your computer, it found all of my home theater components and worked with them right off the bat. But probably the best feature it has is the little help button and a screen. The previous universal learning remote we owned worked great, except if you turned it slightly or happened to step in front of it while it was setting all the components properly for what you wanted to do, if one thing got messed up, it was a pain in the butt for anyone other than myself to fix. My wife didn't really care for it. But now I can leave her alone with the Harmony, knowing that if something got set to the wrong input/channel/etc. she can just hit the help button, and it walks her through what might be the problem, usually fixing it on it's own. That to me made this good remote great.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Help that was needed
Comment: New HDTV in combination with DVR box, A/V receiver and DVD player was going to be a problem with the existing cable company remote. The Harmony 676 does it all. Setup was easy with just a little computer knowledge. Occasionally it doesn't perform the functions as requested but usually because of operator error and it takes very little to correct the problem. Battery life isn't great but you can bypass that issue with rechargeables.

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