Thursday, June 5, 2008

Taking laziness to new levels with the Logitech Harmony One Remote

I've been so busy and got a bunch more new gadgets to play with (I'll post about those sometime, maybe) that I forgot to post more about the Logitech Harmony One Remote I got from BzzAgent.com.

I left off talking about Logitech's amazingly effective device database. I still want to thank whoever added the Gamebridge to the DB. It's been great!!

The next cool thing about the Harmony One is that not only can you program all kinds of remotes into it, but you can also set up "activities" based on the devices you have programmed.

I have my remote control programmed for these devices: my Quasar TV/VCR, my Apex TV, a JVC TV, DVD player, ReplayTV, Xbox 360, GamebridgeTV, and my Lasko Digital Heater (that's right - a heater! It's good for more than just home entertainment products!).

What's cool about activities is that you can set one that'll turn on all the devices you need for that activity and set them up properly so that you can do them with the press of one button.

Photobucket

For example, I have a "Play Xbox 360" activity programmed into my remote. When I touch the screen to "Play Xbox 360" the remote will turn on my JVC TV, set it to Input 2 - Component, and also turn on my Xbox 360 for me. All with just one touch! Another cool thing about that is when you use the Xbox 360 "activity" instead of just browsing to the device in the menu and choosing to control it, it shows A, B, X, Y 360 buttons on the screen. Neat!

Photobucket

There's still some other stuff about the remote I want to write about, but that's all for now!