I recently bought a Harmony One to replace my aging 880. while I like the improvements on this unit I am having a very difficult time getting it to reliably turn on/off my components due to the emitters emissions angle?

I remember hearing that the 880 had a powerful emitter with good emissions angle and that was my experience. This Harmony one is constantly failing to turn on or off something.

I read one post where a person got theirs replaced as defective.

Have others experienced this decline in range/emissions angle with the Harmony one?

I hate to have to incorporate an IR repeater since my older 880 handled everything just fine for many years previously.

Any tricks (no mirrors please) to making this unit work better?

Does it have one or two emitters and what angles do they emit from?

You may have a defective unit, with both of my H1's I can point the remote at the ceiling and still control my equipment.

The unit seems to work fine when pointed at a slight angle to a receiver. I can control from up to 15ft away if I get the angle exactly right. It does not seem to like being pointed directly straight on to the equipment but at a slight angle off center works better.

Thus the emitters must be working. I am unclear as to what type of defect would cause it to work less reliably at an certain angles.

I do have a rather severe angle to two pieces of equipment that I have problems with most often.

It is just that the 880 handled that angle well but the One does not. I am not so much wondering if the unit is defective as I am looking for a confirmation that the spread angle or intensity of the Harmony One is less that that of the 880.

Anyone using the Harmony One felt the need to add an IR repeater. If so any recommendations?

I had recently the following experience: My H 655 wasn'it able the power ON a new device I bought. Logitech gave a lot of codes to test -> not major improvement. Well I could start at some 1 feet distance and without the repeater. Interesting thinks:
Logitech told me to try by turning the remote ctrl 90 degree (having the button facing left or right): this improved really the efficience. What curiouse idea they have to oriente this way the IR beam !
Secondly, I asked them if i'll have an improvement of the situation, if i buy a Harmony One. The answered : NO.

So my compromise is to handle with 2 remotes: the Logitech for most devices AND the original one for the specific one (here the original is much much better).