Logitech Harmony 1100

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http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/accessories/0,39100116,49301233,00.htm

Reviewed 25 February 2009

Reviewed by David Carnoy

When Logitech brought out its touchscreen, tablet-style Harmony 1000 in 2007, it was clearly taking a stab at the high-end of the universal-remote-control market. We liked the 1000, but it did have a few kinks. Enter the Harmony 1100, an upgrade to its older brother.

The 1100 is available now for around £350.

Design
The 1100 is about twice the size of a typical smart phone, at 140mm by 18mm by 104mm, but feels pretty light. The screen measures 89mm (3.5 inches) diagonally and features QVGA resolution (320x240 pixels). That's not super-sharp, but, considering you're not watching video on the screen, it looks very good. The brightness is adjustable, and, even at a moderate setting, the screen is easily viewable.

On the surface, the biggest differences between the 1100 and 1000 are that the 1100 is black instead of silver; has a white, instead of blue, backlight for illuminating the buttons in the dark; and the volume and channel buttons have swapped places in response to "customer research".

Logitech has also added small, tactile guides on the side of the screen to make it easier to find the right button. We're not sure what the point of this is, since you're dealing with virtual buttons.

Although the 1100 is a touchscreen remote, you'll find a handful of hard buttons on the device for frequently used functions -- such as moving the channel or volume up and down -- and a five-way navigation pad to get through menus. All of these buttons, including the small 'activities' button just below the screen, are backlit. As with many remotes, the identically sized channel and volume buttons are right next to each other, so we occasionally hit one when we meant to hit the other.

Like some of Logitech's more expensive Harmony models, the 1100 includes a docking station -- the same one that comes with the 1000 -- for charging its removable lithium-ion battery.

The 1100 also has a motion sensor -- when you pick up the remote, it automatically turns on.

The 1100 combines basic hard buttons with touchscreen controls

We liked the overall design of the 1100, although, if you're used to a wand-style remote, the 1100's tablet style takes a little getting used to. The biggest advantage of using a tablet-style remote is that, when you click on a menu function, such as 'watch TV' or 'watch a DVD', the remote's screen automatically switches to a virtual set of buttons designed to work with that device. However, since you can only fit so many virtual buttons on one screen, you'll be dealing with layers of screens.

In each corner of the display, you'll find an icon that takes you to another set of virtual buttons. For example, to get to the number pad for changing the channels on your cable box, you click on the '123' icon in the lower-left corner. Another icon leads you to a set of buttons that allows you to access content from your digital video recorder.

Logitech has designed the remote to have a maximum of four layers of menus, so users don't get buried in an over-complicated menu tree. All in all, it seems like a good system but, as with any new remote, it will take some getting used to.

Features
With the 1100, Logitech has boosted users' ability to customise commands on every screen. While you can't exactly create your own interface -- you can't upload your own button images, for instance -- you can customise labels and choose from the 90 icons provided by Logitech. Plus, you can add favourite-channel icons.

To customise the look of your screen, you can add your own digital image as a background, but we preferred to stick with one of the several monochrome backgrounds that Logitech offers. You can also add a series of images that will appear in a slide show when your remote goes into a screensaver-style mode.

In most other respects, the 1100 is very similar to the 1000, so much of what we said about that earlier model applies to this one as well. We're still disappointed that Logitech has yet to upgrade the desktop software to allow you to store all your Harmony remotes in one master account and easily clone settings, so you can swap in a new remote without completely having to reprogram it. Logitech does offer some cloning features, but since the 1100 has a totally new operating system, we couldn't just copy over our old settings from the 1000, or any other Harmony remote, to this model.

As with other Harmony remotes, you program the 1100 by connecting it to your Internet-connected Windows PC or Mac via the supplied USB cable, installing the model-specific version of Harmony software, and answering a fairly simple online questionnaire.

You simply choose your home-cinema components from a list, explain how they're connected and define their roles in activity-based functions, such as 'watch TV', 'watch a DVD' or 'listen to music'. For each function, you specify which devices and inputs the remote must enable. You can also choose which keypad functions will 'punch through' to which specific devices (like always having the channel buttons control the cable box or the volume controls dedicated to the TV or receiver, for instance). After you've completed the questionnaire, the software uploads all the relevant control codes to the 1100, as well as the relevant virtual buttons. You can control up to 15 separate products in total.

If you have a home-cinema system that only has a few components, the 1100 is generally very easy to program. However, when you have more than four or five components, things can get trickier. We had eight components and were programming in six activities, and the ride was smooth for about 90 per cent of the journey.

In short, with a couple of hours of diligent trial and error, you can get your system working almost the way you want it to. Unfortunately, achieving perfection can be maddeningly difficult, and getting those last kinks worked out can tack on several hours of additional labour.

Some of the problems arise from the use of infrared. When you've got plenty of components, you have to make sure that all the little delays and response times are set just right for your components to respond in the way you want them to.

The default settings Logitech provides for various types of components work well in many cases, but, when you have several components competing for IR commands, sometimes not everything works as it's supposed to. Inevitably, some component just won't turn on or off when it's supposed to. Hitting the 'help' button on the remote and answering a couple of simple yes-or-no questions will usually rectify the problem but, ideally, you want to hit one button, not several, to get what you want, especially considering how expensive this remote is.

One way to help alleviate any IR-conflict issues is to go down the radio-frequency route -- whether you've hidden all your equipment in a cabinet or not (RF technology allows you to control devices through walls and obstructions without the need for line of sight).

Unfortunately, to use this remote's RF capabilities, you'll need to purchase the optional Logitech Harmony RF Wireless Extender (available for about £65) and plug it into an outlet fairly close to your equipment. You then connect the wiry IR blasters to the wireless receiver and stick each blaster onto the front of your equipment so it's in line with the component's IR port. If you have more than eight components -- or components in separate rooms -- you'll have to purchase additional Wireless Extenders. We'd feel much better about the 1100's steep price tag if Logitech tossed one of these extenders in the box as a freebie.

It would have been good if Logitech had made the remote more conducive to programming multi-room set-ups. As it stands, you can program in a set-up for 'TV2' and 'DVD2' that would work for another room, but there really needs to be a layer on top that allows you to switch from room to room.

While Logitech says the 1100 incorporates Z-Wave wireless technology, it doesn't support third-party Z-Wave modules, such as light dimmers and electric window blinds. In other words, don't expect this remote to work with Z-Wave devices.

Performance
The 1100 is more responsive than the 1000. Logitech has boosted the IR emitter, improving the odds that your components will respond to commands, and respond more quickly. Additionally, the lag when transitioning from screen to screen has been greatly reduced. The overall effect is similar to trading in a pokey old computer for a new one running the latest operating system. Indeed, Logitech has upgraded the processor, and scrapped a Java-based operating system in favour of a Flash-based OS, which also helps speed things up.

We also noticed that the remote updates faster when you're programming it from your PC. It has the same USB 2.0 connection as the 1000, but the new operating system has been designed for quicker updates. Previously, you could wait up to a minute or longer while the remote updated. Instead of completely overwriting the file on the remote, the system now just looks for changes and updates the remote accordingly.

The 1000's battery life wasn't great, and that doesn't seem to have changed with this model. Since the 1100 has a large LCD screen, it sucks plenty of juice if you use it heavily. Most users will leave the 1100 in its dock when not in use, however, so battery life shouldn't be too great a concern.

Conclusion
The Logitech Harmony 1100 is really the remote that the 1000 should have been. We just wish it was less expensive or else came with a Harmony RF Wireless Extender included. Still, it costs far less than high-end tablet remotes that require their own professional programmers, and, if you look at it that way, the 1100 represents a pretty good deal.

The main question for many people will be whether to buy this model or the less-expensive Harmony One, or even the 1000. If you're on a tighter budget and don't require the RF option, we'd recommend the One. But we do think the 1100 offers some significant upgrades over the 1000, including improved performance and stability, and small design tweaks.

Additional editing by Charles Kloet