If your coffee table full of remotes needs taming, the best universal remotes can still swoop in and cut out some remote clutter. And some of the old devices, including the Harmony remotes, still work well if you’re willing to buy a used one. There are still a few companies that make universal remotes. You could argue they’ve been replaced by smartphones but switching between a hundred different clunky apps just isn’t as elegant as the defunct, yet still supported Logitech Harmony remote. Despite the fact that we have more devices than ever, universal remotes are a dying breed. Once upon a time, manufacturers made third-party universal remotes, which connected to many devices so you could navigate them all with one magic wand. Juggling multiple remotes for TV, cable box, soundbar, game consoles, and all the other devices in your living room can get extremely frustrating. Here’s some additional articles I’ve written in the past about them.We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Logitech and remote controls is a popular subject. If you’ve got the need and the budget, companies like URC, RTI, Savant, Control 4, Crestron, Elan, and others will gladly take your money.įor the sake of full disclosure, my company, DoItForMeSolutions, is an authorized dealer and system integrator for Savant, so if you are still drooling over that beautiful Pro Remote X2 and don’t have to worry about the price…. High end luxury remote controls, often part of a larger whole-home smart home system will be around for a long time. On the hobbyist side of things, several products are available that provide do it yourself (DIY) infra-red (IR) or RF transmitters and software that we can incorporate into our smart home systems. There will always be some of us that want to control a cabinet full of equipment or need advanced capability.Īlthough Logitech Harmony is dead, there are a few brands of programmable consumer remotes that still exist.Ĭaavo is still promising, and worth a look. “Input Zero” – the trend to have everything stream directly to our smart TV’s without intermediate cable boxes or even standalone streaming boxes, is happening faster ever day. As streaming and cord-cutting continues to grow, in a few years the death of Logitech Harmony remotes could be an even smaller footnote in the march of technology. If like me, you use several Logitech Harmony remotes, the writing is on the wall.Ī very realistic strategy is not to panic and do nothing. They value what their brand means to consumers and don’t want to risk impacting their lucrative sales of millions and millions of mice, keyboards, and other accessories.įor most of my clients and myself using Logitech Harmony remotes now, I don’t see the need to make any changes. It’s reassuring that the risk of them shutting down the cloud servers that help with the programming is minimal for now. Logitech has announced they will be continuing support and minimal maintenance/updates along with warranty service. So if you have ‘em, and don’t want ‘em, might be a good time to consider selling ‘em! Medium term The scalpers are already hitting eBay selling used ones for more than the original retail price! If you currently use Logitech Harmony remotes, or were planning on getting one, better act fast.įortunately some large retailers still have inventory left, at least for a while. Logitech Harmony only superficially embraced voice control with links to Amazon Alexa and an ill-fated voice-first remote. Most cable or satellite box remotes, and streaming players (Apple, Google, Amazon, Roku) have voice control capability. Voice control, for better or worse, has become the new thing. Many of us don’t want to spend $100 to $400 or more when the free remote is actually quite good. The Logitech Harmony may be the “Grandma remote” to operate, but the geek or nerd is still needed to initially set it up.Ī great value, but the Logitech Harmony isn’t dirt cheap. As a result, complicated sequences of steps on multiple devices “just to watch TV” isn’t needed much of the time.īut Programming still can be confusing and hard. A single basic remote is able to control most of what we do when watching TV.įewer of us have DVD players or other devices connected to our TV or stereo receivers. Here’s a popular take on why Harmony is dead. Many of my custom integration buddies have been predicting this for a long time. Lot’s of speculation amongst customers, online forums, dealers, and distributors. The extremely popular Logitech Harmony remote control line has been discontinued. The official confirmation of long-standing rumors
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