I bought a 688 a couple of years ago back when Harmony was not owned by Logitech and I was blown away at how great their customer service was. You always got very knowledgeable people on the phone and if you had a problem, stuff got taken care of. My remote had to be replaced 3 times as it kept dieing. I finally got one that worked and everything has been great since until a few weeks ago.

I needed to update my remote because I got some new hardware and needed to reconfigure it. I plugged it in, installed the software and the software immediately did a firmware update on the remote. Soon as that happened, the remote died. The screen shows "System Error 1" and it is not recognized by any computer.

I called Harmony and spoke with a woman that didn't hardly know a remote from a garage door opener. She was virtually useless but told me that a level 2 tech would call me back the next business day and they should be able to help me. Next day comes and goes.. no call. In the meantime, figuring I'm hosed, I ordered an MX-950 from SurfRemote (Same place I got the Harmony) so I wouldn't have a lot of downtime. No call from Harmony, MX-950 in place, all is well.

10 days later, I get a call from Harmony. "Hey, we just wanted to check and see if you were still having that remote problem." So I go through the whole thing with this guy, who I assume was a level 2 tech, explained to him that it died after a supposedly successful firmware upgrade and he told me that they wanted to see the remote back there given the circumstances and he would set me up to get a replacement. Now at the time, I told him I wasn't sure that it was even still under warranty. He said "That's okay, you bought it from an authorized dealer, the warranty department shouldn't hassle you, you'll get an email within 2 days." That was 7 days ago. No email. I call Harmony, they refuse to do anything with the remote even tho their firmware update broke it. I can pay for them to fix it but they won't warranty it.

Harmony used to be a great company. Man, have they gone down the toilet since Logitech bought them. It takes an act of congress to get anyone knowledgeable on the phone and the luster that the company had a couple of years ago is all but gone. The point of all this? Mostly I'm just venting.. but I want people to know what they're getting themselves into when they buy these remotes also. I'll never buy another Harmony product. I really liked the 688 but it wasn't exactly reliable and now that they're not standing behind them, I just don't see the use in continuing to give them money.