Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The Harmony 900 is VERY similar to the Harmony One, which is a terrific remote. If you don't need the RF capability, I would stick with the Harmony One - It is a much better value.
My Harmony experience: I started with the 880 and upgraded to the One, and now to the 900.
All of these remotes pass the babysitter test - that is, can a babysitter pick up the remote and watch tv. The RF capability (using radio frequency "RF" instead of line of sight infrared "IR") helps the 900 pass the babysitter test with flying colors.
PROS of the 900
1) The remote has a great screen and there are tons of icons available online to take advantage of it.
2) The ability to use RF means that you can set up your system so that the remote does not need to pointed anywhere near the components for them to work. This is especially useful where your "Watch TV" command includes several steps such as turning on a receiver, cable box and tv - miss one of those and you can become very frustrated. The RF prevents this. Three provided blasters (one large and two small) convert the RF signal to IR in your av cabinet. The 900 also can send IR and you can select which devices have signals sent over RF or IR. I have a plasma set on the wall and can't easily put an IR blaster nearby, so I have the plasma set to IR and all of my other components - in a nearby AV rack - set to RF. It works great.
3) All of the other pros you get from the 880 and One are also present in the 900 (except macros - see below).
4) The other obvious difference between the One and the 900 is that the 900 adds a row of four colored hard buttons to correspond to the A B C and D commands on some cable boxes and blue-ray players. To make room, the mute and previous channel buttons are a bit smaller.
5) The IR blasters are great and do NOT need to ever be removed from the cabinet to do updates (as you have to do with some other models). All updates are done on the remote over USB, and the remote then updates the blasters wirelessly.
CONS of the 900
1) By far, the largest con is the inability to simply upgrade from previous models. Upgrading from the 880 to the One took five minutes. You just have to remap a couple of buttons and everything else carries over. Upgrading from the One to the 900 requires you to start from scratch. It forces you to create an entirely new Harmony account. You have to reconfigure all of your devices, all of your activities, and all of your favorite channels. You have to re-teach any custom IR commands. This is fairly inexcusable. I have five devices and four activities. I've been using Harmony remotes for years and have really fine-tuned my set-up. It took me over three hours to get it all back in shape - and I'm probably still not there. So, this is a major flaw I would hope they can fix.
2) The remote can still do customized macros when starting or ending an activity, but you cannot do macros within an activity anymore. That means you cannot have the pause command also mute the sound and bring up the lights. This is not a big deal for me, since I never used macros on my older Harmony remotes, but some people seem to be quite bent out of shape over the removal of this feature. To be clear, you can still do whatever you want when starting or ending an activity.
3) The "slideshow" on the older remotes has been replaced with a sleep timer.
4) The stickers provided to affix the blaster and mini-blasters to your AV cabinet shelves are terrible. You will need to use better double-sided tape.
5) The 900 takes longer to switch between screens than the One or the 880 did. It is as if it is "thinking" about things for a second or two before they happen.
6) The left and right soft keys used to switch between screens are less sensitive than they were on the One, and you cannot adjust the screen touch sensitivity.
7) The 900 gives you the ability to add icons to the soft keys, but - unlike the favorite channels - you cannot use custom icons from the internet. This is a silly limitation and the number of available icons is very limited. In any event, this is still a step up from the One.
8) Favorite channels are still limited to four screens per activity. If you want to have more than that (and many people do) you need to add another watch TV activity. Each activity gets independent favorite channels. I wish this could be expanded. My remote is only using 31 MB of 62 MB of onboard memory, and I would love to have the ability to add many more channels to my favorites.
9) You no longer have the ability to adjust the brightness of the light on the charging cradle, but it isn't very bright and doesn't bother me. The One has a switch on the bottom of the cradle to adjust the brightness.
CONCLUSION
All in all, once configured, I really like the 900. However, I would never upgrade from the One to the 900 unless I really needed the RF functions. If you were to remove the RF function from the 900, I would think the One is a better remote and only costs half as much. That said, the RF function is a great addition and really makes it much easier for others to use. It easily passes the babysitter test. I'm giving it three stars because I think the One gives much better value, and the inability to easily upgrade really irked me. If the One did not exist, or if I had never owned a previous Harmony remote, I would give it 4 1/2 stars.
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Logitech Harmony 900 Rechargeable Remote with Color Touch ScreenLogitech Harmony 900 lets you put your home-entertainment equipment behind walls or cabinet doors using RF (radio frequency) technology. Just place the simple-to-install IR blaster and mini blasters near the equipment you want to control to turn RF signals into IR commands your devices understand. Once you're set up, the full-color touch screen lets you see only the controls you need and start your entertainment with just one touch. You can replace up to 15 other remotes. And our software finds the control codes for your equipment from our online database of more than 5,000 brands and 225,000 devices. So chances are, if you own it, your Harmony 900 can control it.
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