About 4 years ago I moved all my equipment from being in our living room to a closet behind it. I did this as we switched from using our 1080P Projector just for movies to using it as our primary display device. That lead me to research and ultimately decide to purchase the Harmony 890 and RF Extender. Well over the course of the last year and half I have had the same problem many users had with this device, the volume and channel buttons no longer worked. I did the recommended work around of mapping these to the button on the side of the color LCD. Recently it got to the point where those buttons were failing. So I started my search for a better solution.

First here is my setup:
Living Room:
Projector Epson Home Cinema 8350 - 1080P LCD projector (December 2012)
Lutron Spacer IR Wall dimmer(18 years old, but still works great)
B&W 602 front (18 years old, but still works great)
B&W CC6 Center (18 years old, but still works great)
B&W 601 surround (18 years old, but still works great)

AV Closet:
Denon AVR-3200 (18 years old, but still works great)
Panasonic DMP-BD55K (4 year old Bluray player with 6 channel out)
MonoPrice 3 port HDMI switch (December 2012)
Wide Open West Ultra TV (Arris MP2000)
Nintendo Wii

My research lead me to the URC MX-880 and MRF-260 base station. I considered the MX-780 as well. Since this is our primary TV I needed a quick solution so I found a very lightly used Harmony 890 and RF Extender on eBay for $107. It was quickly put in place and I was fortunate enough to also find a used, but maintained MX-880 and MRF-260 RF base station.

Comparing Hardware:

Remote Controls:

Harmony 890
Pros:
Nice layout for DVR
light and well balanced in the hand
Cons:
Cheap feeling plastic
wears out quickly

MX-880
Pros:
Nice layout for DVR
Solid construction, feels solid
well balanced in the hand
Cons:
A on the heavier side

Harmony Extender
Pros:
No issues with RF Interference
4 addressable IR blasters
Cons:
Needs to be programmed every time the remote programmed

MRF-260
Pros:
4 Addressable IR blasters
No Need to program it
Ability to set the gain on the IR blasters
Cons:
Very prone to RF Interference, I had to remove the antennae to be functional

End User Experience:

Harmony 890:
The Harmony has the concept of activities where you are essentially in that activity and it remembers this. Additionally it has a help system if you are having a problem with that activity where the system will ask you a series of questions that help you fix a missed or out of sync device. This is in the end more hassle than help, especially if you already know what is wrong, which you basically need to know to have the help system do any good. I actually ended up just adding the common solutions to problems in the main page of each activity. In my system the errors tend to be one of three things HDMI Switch off, Receiver Off, or Receiver on the wrong input. Once successfully in an activity the button layout and responsiveness is very good. The speed of some IR blasts can be sluggish at times.

MX-880:
The MX-880 from an end user perspective also has activities. It has a Watch device group, Listen Device Group, and Favs. Functionally the same thing that occurs on the Harmony when say watch TV it performs all the power on and sets modes, etc. and then jumps to a page of activity specific functionality. Since we do not have any Audio specific components I used the listen group to perform the common failures (Turn on Receiver, Turn on Switch, Turn On Projector), I also for my sanity added a second page to set the current state of these devices. What is nice about the MX-880 is the ability to program in discrete codes from these forums so simply running the watch activity again would usually fix the problem. Unfortunately I still have 2 and half devices without discrete codes (18 year old Denon Receiver, MonoPrice HDMI Switch, and the half is my Epson Projector, The power is the toggle so if it is hit twice it will turn off, but it does have a discrete off). Some of my current issues may be resolved by adjusting where the IR Blasters are located and adjusting the gain, changing repeats and pauses. By far the MX-880 plus the MRF-260 was able to send IR blasts faster than the Harmony.

Programming Experience:

I have programmed almost every kind of remote over the years. I had my first consumer line RF Extender 18 years which was simple macros and probably a URC. Pronto Touch Screen. HTPC Based system using RF based ATI Remote Wonder combined with USB UIRT and Girder for automation. I also am a Software Architect and have been writing software for 15 years. I have worked on low level device programming and high level software.

Harmony:
The Harmony approach is designed for an end user who will fit their simplistic approach. Add the devices and specify what they will be used for and define some basic work flows for activities. For me the IR Database covered all my equipment. Once you have to start customizing pauses or add custom IR codes via learning then things get really painful. This is made worse by the fact that every time you want to test it on the remote you need to go through a slow process of updating the extender and the remote and then hook the extender back into the closet. The biggest weakness with the Harmony is that you can not enter Pronto Hex codes.

URC Complete Control Program:
I have only been using this Software for about a week in my free time and don't claim to be an expert. At this point I have gotten to the point where I have setup three variables for tracking the current state of three devices that don't have discrete codes (Receiver, HDMMI Switch) and the projector that requires a 30 second wait before it is ready to respond to input requests. These were pretty straight forward to setup and are managed by the Power On and Power Off macros of those devices. It was easy to configure the Punch Through Commands, and to customize the "Activities" screen. The IR Code Database is fairly extensive, but there were some gaps with my equipment. Added raw Pronto Hex codes is easy. I like that you can name the IR Ports in CCP, which makes it easier to assign later. The work flow for the user experience is fairly straight forward and I really like that I only need to update the remote and not keep going into the closet to get the extender like with the Harmony. I can update the MX-880 about 5 times in the time it takes to update the Harmony. The only part of CCP that does not work as desired or I don't how to do it. When testing IR codes it does not send them to the base station so I end up having to take my laptop to the closet and test from their or just updating the remote and testing. This is where the fast updates makes life easier.

I am enjoying digging through the forums to learn new ways to program devices. My next upgrade to the system will be a new AV Receiver with HDMI switching and discrete codes which should make the whole system more reliable.

John