On your Sony can you control multiple devices at the same time? e.g. If you're watching a DVD can the volume buttons control the A/V receiver while the transport buttons control the DVD player and other buttons control the lights and TV? I'm sure it can but that's what you get with Harmony Activities.

What you don't get with any other universal remote is Harmony's smart state management of power and inputs. If you have discrete power and input selection commands for all of your equipment then you can just create macros and blast the power and input commands every time. But if you don't - and some of your equipment uses toggles or you have to cycle through a list of inputs, then regular macros won't work and you either have to use complicated programming with state variables or you have to use multiple macros for each function (or you always have to go back to a known state before switching).

When you select a new activity, the harmony looks at which devices are needed and whether they are already on or not and only sends the power commands that are needed for that activity. It will resend discrete commands every time because that doesn't hurt anything but it only sends toggle commands when needed.

It does the same for inputs - it resends discrete input commands but for a toggle or cycle list it dynamically figures out how many commands to send based on where it is now vs. where it needs to be. e.g. If you're going from Watch TV to Watch DVD it may take 3 steps in the input menu but if you're going from Play Video game to Watch DVD it may only take 1. The Harmony does this automatically.

And if any of your equipment gets out of sync, you can press the Help button and it will resend commands and ask questions until it fixes the problem. This plus the ability to select aptly named activities with one button press makes it the perfect remote for non-techie family members including children and the elderly.