Gadgetory

hey I'm Matthew Muscovy a cat CNET and today we're gonna take a look at the Logitech Harmony smart control this is a universal remote system that also lets you use your smart phone to control all your devices and it's currently selling for a hundred and thirty dollars so this is the remote but the smart control is really centered around this the Harmony hub this little device sits in your TV cabinet and it distributes all your remote signals to your home theater gear even better the hub can directly control Sony's ps3 which typically can't be controlled by a universal remote without a separate adapter so that's a big plus for PlayStation 3 owners what's also neat is not only can you control the hub with the included remote you can also control it with your smartphone using the Harmony app for iOS and Android load it up and you get the same harmony activities like watch TV that allow you to hit one button and the system does everything you need including turning on the TV and your AV receiver and switching to the right inputs however in everyday use I found I ended up almost never using the smart phone to control my TV as it ends up taking more time than you think to wake up your phone unlock it finally app load it up and all that just to change your channel it turns out what you really want is a remote that works as soon as you pick it up and that's why harmony includes the basic remote now this is significantly thinner and lighter than any other Harmony remote and it communicates with the hub using RF signals which means you don't need to point the remote at the TV for it to work it's actually a pretty great remote with one big exception which is that it only includes three activity buttons at the top that's just not quite enough and although you can technically access three more activities by pressing and holding those buttons it's not a great solution overall considering the remote itself can control eight separate devices one or two more activity buttons would have been nice the other major drawback to the smart control system is that it can be a little bit of a pain to set up Logitech has tried to simplify the process by allowing you to do it with a smartphone app but I still ran into several issues and the bottom line is it took me a while to get everything running smoothly the good news is that after the initial investment of time it worked perfectly but you definitely need some patience to get over that initial setup hassle and that's the main takeaway with the harmony smart control it offers convenient RF based universal remote control from a nice compact clicker at a very reasonable price but you have to be willing to invest some time in the setup to get it running smoothly I'm Matthew Muscovy ak and this is the Logitech Harmony smart control