I have been using a Harmony 880 (actually 885) very moderately for almost 3 years.
After 30 months of use the buttons started to deteriorate, needing several presses to respond. Especially the volume buttons, but also a couple of the soft buttons.

Has this been your experience with this model?

The only relief Logitech has offered is a new 885 for 125 euros ($185 !). Has any of you gotten a better response from Logitech to a similar problem?

I also have an 880 which just reached the age of 30 months, and suddenly the UP VOLUME button requires a heavy push before it operates.

I see in another thread that others have reported the same button having problems. I opened the remote to make sure there were no cookie crumbs under the button , but everything looked normal.

The volume button is only used about 1/10th of the time the cursor arrow keys are used, but they still work fine.

This has been a good remote, but at the $300 Canadian price, it ends up costing $10 per month. I have not contacted Logitech to see if they are willling to do anything.

Rick

It seems that the Harmony remote, despite its price, uses a cheap construction. Is it easy to open the 880 and put it back together?

One of the soft buttons on my 628 periodically has the same issue. I've found that disassembling the unit and cleaning both the bottom of the button & the PCB traces with isopropyl alcohol restores normal operation for several months.

It is very simple to open. Remove 2 screws located on the rear side of the unit. One is at the top and one is at the bottom. Begin to separate the front half from the back half with your fingers. Once an small gap is visible, you will see several "latches" around the edges holding the halves together, slip in a small screw driver to separate the latches on one side, and the remaining side will just lift apart.

Rick

I am familiar with remotes that use a conductive paint on the buttom of the rubber buttons to "short out" PCB traces on the circuit board.These types of remotes are normally silent when the buttons are pushed and nothing is felt through the fingertips. You should probably be aware that cleaning these buttons slightly will sometime help their operation, but frequent cleaning of the rubber buttons will wash away the conductive coating and ruin the remote.

The 880 however uses the more reliable method of sticking an adhesive plastic film over the PCB. This film has small half bubbles with foil under them. When the button is pushed it in turn pushes down on the plastic bubble, causing it to collapse with a small popping sound, and the foil once again "shorts out" the PCB traces. By the way this type of button is almost total immune to cookie crumbs and slight spills because the electrical contacts are sealed under the plastic film.

In the case of the 880 it looks like this film may be lifting at the edges of the PCB, and that is why the volume buttons are the first to be affected.

Rick

Thank you for your very detailed replies about the 880.

I get the, somewhat discouraging, impression that you're saying that specialized conductive coating that's usually used to rejuvenate remotes is useless on the 880. (I just ordered some!)

Anything else one can do to "fix" an 880?

The coating you ordered will not work on the 880. I have not taken any other Harmonys apart, but other threads have indicated other models use the conductive coating.

I think my problem is caused by the plastic film lifting nearest the edges of the PCB and that is why the button requires extra pressure to push the foil contact the extra distance. My remote may never fail entirely , but the need to press harder on some buttons is a great annoyance to me.

The buttons work great when I push directly on the plastic bubbles, so I was thinking of gluing something on the back of the external buttons which would force the plastic bubble to travel further.

My wife can't operate my system without the 880, so I will buy a replacement before I ever attempt to modify the existing one and risk putting it out of service.

I've had this problem. I'm now on my third 885 which is now exhibiting the same problems as the other two but with different buttons. One of the buttons affected is the skip button which is not on the edge of the keypad. I even had these issues with the second one right out of the box with no usage at all. That went straight back. I have been using this last one for about a year now and it's been a bit dodgy for a month or two I guess.

I came by the forums here to see if anyone else was having this problem. My 880 is becoming increasingly flaky lately, with exactly these symptoms. I love the concept of the 880, but the execution seems to be seriously flawed. I've never liked the power of the IR, and now the buttons are spotty. That's disappointing, considering the price point.

- Jeff