I'm looking for a remote that is a good balance between ease of programming, ease of use, and features. I've narrowed my search to a Harmony 676, a Harmony 880, and an HTM MX-700. Can anyone help me out with the advantages of each over the other two?

Also: Other than the color LCD and the re-charger, what features are unique to the 880 over the 676?

Thanks!

The 880 has 8 vs 6 activities on the LCD and it lights up when you pick it up. The 880 buttons are hard vs soft for the 676 if that makes a difference. All Harmony remotes function pretty much the same as for as what they can do. Button layout is the main difference.

I'm still on the fence between the 676 and the 880. The extra features of the 880 are cool but I'm having a hard time justfying the price difference.

Search through the topics and you will find a lot of information about the remotes can do and what people think of the different models.

Thanks. I saw both the 676 and the 880 at Best Buy the other night. Both (as well as the 659) looked cool.

The HTM MX-700 seems like a higher-end remote. I'm wondering if that translates into features that the Harmony models don't have?

It's more flexible in that you can do Macros which the Harmony remotes can't do (not counting activity setup), but it's much harder to program, especially setting up activities where you have to choose devices and inputs.

With the Harmony you just tell it how your device turns on and off, which inputs are active and how to select them. Then you put devices together to form activities and the Harmony will automagically create all the commands dynamically to select the right devices and inputs even if - and this is where the Harmony has the others beat hands down - the device doesn't have discrete inputs and you have to scroll through a list. With discretes - it's easy. You just send the discrete code no matter what. Without discretes, you have to know where you're coming from to know how to get to where you want to be. You can do that with state variables and dynamic programming on the HTM remotes but it's not very easy.

I've had both and if I had to make the decision again I would get the HTM if it was for my oasis. The home theater set-up where I would be the only one *allowed* to use the remote. The HTMs are ultimately more powerful but I've found that i've tweaked them so much that things that were logical to me - the programmer - were not as straightforward to everyone else. In an environment like I have now where the wife, kids, babysitters and grandparents all want to watch TV the Harmony is the way to go. I have the H880 and have not had a "tech support" call at my office yet.

I have the MX-700, and while it can be very flexible as far as setting up general purpose macros, it does NOT have state variables! This is the main reason I'm considering going to the 880 (if its EVER released to retailers other than BB and at a reasonable price). I have several components that do not have discrete codes and its very akward to use the MX-700 on them. As far as I know, the only HTM remotes that have state variables are the very expensive ones!

Gerry

Thanks. Can you give me an example of where an HTM macro would come in useful and how the same action could be performed with a Harmony, if it would even be possible?

Thanks. My environment is similar to yours. Can you give me some examples of things that you can do with the HTM that you can't do (well or at all) with the Harmony? I'm wondering what I would miss if I went with the Harmony over the HTM.

I've noticed that some users are having problems with the 880; have you experienced any problems?

880 works great for me. The tilt sensor that activates the backlight is not as sensitive as the one on my MX3000 but then again that's a $1,000 remote. The one on the 880 works reliably enough and it supports all of my devices.

The one feature that the 880 does not have is the ability to program macros. While power macros are addressed within the activities there are some times when I would like to combine multiple commands in one. A specific example is with my SA8300HD cable box from Cablevision. If I hit the "guide" button i am brought to a main menu with choices for the channel guide, OnDemand, Enhance TV, etc. And I have to hit select to then go to the channel guide. On an HTM remote I would simply program a macro into the guide button that would activet "Guide + Select" and save me a button press. To some this may sound nitpicky or downright lazy but when you have programmed a lot of universal remotes the goal is to require as few button presses as possible.

Yes, sorry. I wasn't sure exactly which models had it but I do believe only the more expensive HTM remotes have that capability.

The example given is the most common reason for doing a macro outside of power and input selection.

Some displays require multiple button presses to activate certain features such as aspect ratio, closed captioning or muting the speakers.

Understand that for these cases the Harmony is no worse than the OEM remote, and it's not that you can't do something. It just might take 3 buttons instead of one (just like the OEM remote).

IMO the smart state technology and ease of programming FAR outweigh the inability to do certain macros.

Harmony remotes also have the "Help" button to guide the user in putting the devices back in sync. A great feature in my view!

Martin :-)

For macros that only require two buttons (such as remoteshoppe's example above), the Harmony can quite often learn 2-button sequences successfully if they are taught as one new command in RAW mode.

Just a thought.

I don't understand, or are all the other Harmony remotes different?

I have a 768, and at anytime I can program a key, or menu item, to send a sequence of IR commands, and isn't that what a macro is?

I like it because you can also program it in XML. I had Harmony create state variable, so that I had a simple command to switch aspect ratio TV (which took multiple keys, when remembered their last setting)

I could also update the XML, so I could have half a dozen power on activities (like the newer remotes), rather than the one default (and pressing Play start watch DVD, or Volume Up to play Music) is quite intuitive. Shame they dropped the XML customizations in the newer remotes

Yes, all the newer Harmony remotes are different - you can't edit the XML or do macros.