My Lord! I didn't want to post but I just had to. To imply that Harmony remotes are "mediocre" and their popularity is merely due to good marketing is a load of crap. Read the reviews by thousands of owners, here and elsewhere. Are these poor misguided souls just accepting mediocrity? Are these pathetic wretches even now huddled in their media rooms, trying to get their "mediocre" remotes to control their system properly? The real fact is; Harmony remotes control tens of thousands of systems, from basic to complex, and they do it easily and elegantly, every time.

My 880 controls a rather simple system; Sony 60A3000, Onkyo 805 receiver, Directv HD recorder, OTA broadcasts, a Panasonic Blu Ray BD30, A Toshiba A35 Hd DVD player, and an Oppo SACD player. You know what; it switches activities perfectly each and every time. It handles every input, every adjustment and, by golly, it looks good too. Now what in H*ll is "mediocre" about that. Am I satisfied with my Harmony 880? Absolutely. I don't accept mediocrity in any product and, by the way, marketing didn't lead me to my Harmony - all the fine owner reviews on Remote Central and elsewhere did.

The bottom-line is, if a Harmony One does everything, I mean everything, a user wants to control his system why on earth would he consider a remote costing two to ten times more? Is it because he made the mistake of walking into a retailer who tried to maximize his gross by denigrating Harmony remotes and recommending one with a higher margin? Is it because he's just "Joe Sixpack," some shmuck who doesn't know anything? That seems to be the implication in some of these posts and it too is nonsense. I'd argue that a system owner who buys merely on the advise of a single installer or retailer is the shmuck. I'd argue that a system owner who lets someone talk him out of a Harmony because it's "mediocre" or worse, because it's cheap, is the shmuck.

There are thousands of installations that should be done by custom installers. There are thousands of systems that need far more complex remotes. That said, probably 90% to 95% of all reasonably serious audio-video systems could get along famously with one of the Harmony remotes. Nothing "mediocre" about that.

I was an engineer in the auto industry. I spent years in dealerships and watched hundreds of car sales people in action. Never, not once, did I ever see a saleman tell a prospect, "I know you can afford that BMW 735i but I'd rather sell you a 325. It's just as good a car and it's really all you need."