Hi

I've had a Marantz RC5000 (also known as the Phillips Pronto) remote, its finally given up the ghost after 8 years of loyal service, its been a fine remote.

I'm now looking for a replacement, the Logitech remotes seem the best around for features/value, I can get a Harmony one for about £110 and the 785 for about £80, looking at the reviews and comments on the forums, I think its worth paying the bit extra for the Harmony One, what do people think, bearing in mind i'm used to the touch screen of the RC5000?

The other concern I have is for the IR reach, I have a Samsung 40" LCD TV on a table in the corner of the living room, we have a 1 year old, so the Sky+ box and the Sony DAV-IS10 home theatre system control box are hidden well back behind the TV against the wall, so they are not visible, only the TV can be seen/reached by 1 year olds fingers !

The RC5000 was fine for controlling the SKY+ and IS10 behind the TV, you just point the RC5000 at the TV and the IR signal easily reached the devices behind the TV to control them, the RC5000 IR spread always seemed to be very good and could reach devices without having to have much of the device on show, having used the native SKY+ and IS10 remotes for the last few weeks since the RC5000 demise, I have been struggling to control these devices as the TV is blocking the IR reaching the devices, so i'm having to angle the device round the side of the TV, often its just easier to get up and manually operate the devices, not what you want from a remote !!! so, what's the Harmony one/785 like for the IR reach? as I do not want to spend over £100 and have the same problem as I've got with the remotes that came with the devices.

Moving the Sky+ and IS10 is not really an option as they just sit behiond the TV so I have no room to move them and if I move them infront of the TV, they look unsightly and the baby loves to grab them !!!

Thanks for any help.

Hi i have recently moved from pronto to harmony remotes having had prontos for 8 or more years i was pleasantly surprised with the harmony
whilst its not as customiseable as the prontos i found them easy to set up and program (although this can only be done online so all ive learnt with proto edit is now obsolete)
i have a 785 we were looking at waiting for the "one" but lack of hard colour(text) buttons put paid to that. after using this for a few weeks i went and got myself a 525 for the bedroom aswell.
ive had no problems with missed ir commands and some of my equipment is in the corner of my lounge.and any commands that do get lost can be fixed with the "help" button.
i though i would miss the touch screen but to be honest with the screen being customiseable and having hard buttons cooresponding to the onscreen icons is just as good as a touch screen (although on occasions i do try to press the screen (old habbits never die))
i have not tried the "one" and although it looks really nice the text buttons were the only reson i got a 785 instead i can imagine with sky+ they would be a bonus being always there when you need them instead of having to move to a new page
my girlfriend is also much happier using the 785 as opposed to the prontos and marantz 3200 and when the kids come over to stay they have thier own activities button so they can use all me equipment without me having to help them
hope this little rant will help you make a descision
and welcome to harmony goodbye to pronto

Hi Lister

Thanks for the response, I was considering going for an old Pronto from Ebay, but having looked at the Logitech remotes, I like the look of them, I'm just debating which Harmony model to go for now, the Harmony one sounds a great model, but the lack of coloured buttons would be annoying for using SKY+ which is mainly what we watch TV through.

Its funny you mention your girlfriend, I bought the RC5000 in 1999 for about £250, I was in ther bad books for months for spending that much money on a remote ! after the RC5000 being dead for 3 weeks, the now wife is encouraging me to buy a multi function remote again as its a pain trying to control all the devices now, I mentioned the current price of around £100 for a Harmony one and she thinks its a great buy now !!!!

Paul.

This thread shows lots of pictures of the various Harmony models: [Link: remotecentral.com]

Note: A regular mirror makes an excellent IR reflector.