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| Brand: Logitech
List Price: $129.99
Buy New: $61.10
You Save: $68.89 (53%)
New (70) Used (2) from $58.99
Rating:  538 reviews
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4
Dimensions (in): 11.8 x 7.1 x 2
Warranty: 1 year warranty
MPN: 966208-0403
Model: 966208-0403
UPC: 840356629193
EAN: 0097855037947
ASIN: B000EUGX70
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Never Open,Ready to ship W/ tracking number,No Shipping to APO,FPO, HI, PR, AK
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| Customer Reviews:
 Harmony Software Sucks; Do Not Buy This Or Any Other Harmony Remote Until It Is Upgraded June 15, 2006
Larry Westphal (Swarthmore, PA)
13 out of 52 found this review helpful
I paid $130 for the expected privilege of reducing the number of remote controls we use from six to one. In the event, we've gotten down to three. Logitech's software does not carry all critical functions over from other remotes to the Harmony. Thus we must use our TV remote to mute the TV and to switch among input sources. And we must use our Tivo remote to activate the functions that record programs. In turn, neither our TV (a Hewlett Packard) nor our Tivo were among the products listed for accelerated support, so additional work was entailed. Moreover, the software is the clunkiest I have ever encountered in years of fooling with techie toys. Finally, I suspect it was responsible for the malfunctioning of my computer, eradicated only by running several fix up programs.
Bottom line: Harmony products ain't worth the price UNTIL the software is upgraded. Don't buy them in the meantime. Get something else.
I will post a message when the software has been upgraded, as it must be.
 Great remote with a great price tag! October 4, 2006
Brett S. (Connecticut)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
After doing a lot of research, and finally reading slick045's and Justin's review below (the icing on the cake), I decided to go with the 550. I was looking for a simple, cool looking, rectangular remote that could control all of my devices (without breaking the bank). Within an hour, I had the remote working exactly how I wanted (actually, in 10 minutes I had the first iteration of it going). I was suprised that it even had my remote control lights in the online database (3BM, which is not a common brand). I know a lot of people say the software is difficult, but once you spend 15 minutes playing around with it you will figure it out. I am technically savvy but I don't think you need to be with this remote's software...in fact, I was glad it had so much programming flexibility. The only "major" tweak I had to do was remove the delay on the 550 remote for my Scientific Atlanta cable box as there was a noticeable pause when entering channel numbers. I did this by going to "Adjust the delays" for the device and changing the "Inter-Device Delay" from 1000ms to 0ms and walla it was as quick as the original cable remote. I was also impressed how easy it was to set up the activities to do multiple commands at once. Bottom line, definitely a smart buy. As this is my first day with the remote, I will be sure to update if things change, but I really don't think they will. I am a happy customer down from 6 remotes to 1!
 OK, but worse than the 6xx series December 4, 2007
G. Litwinski (Midland, MI United States)
11 out of 16 found this review helpful
I already had a Harmony 628 and two 659's. I am a big fan of the Harmony concept and liked the 659 model with a single big exception: the location of the DVD/VCR play/fast-forward/stop/etc. controls at the very bottom of the remote where they are hard to access one handed. The 628 has those controls located further north on the remote, but it is missing some buttons that are useful with TIVO.
The 5xx series at first appears to be an improvement on the 6xx series. Specifically, the 5xx models feel just a little bit better in the hand and are more stylish. The DVD/VCR play control buttons are better located than on the 659 and the TIVO-friendly buttons are there. However, that is about it in terms of advantages vs. the 6xx series. The rest is all disadvantages. a few:
The buttons are too small and worse yet close to gether. The GUIDE to Prev banks are particularly bad except that you can activate them by pressing just the outer edge of the button which is non-intuitive and probably just lucky.
The black letters on blue background display is pretty, but hard to read in anything other than a very bright or very dark room. The 659 used black on a bright green background and was much more readable. A victory of pretty over practical in the 5xx.
The needless rubber cover over the mini-usb port looks and feels like a cheap afterthought. The cover does not easilly re-attach after programming. It actually resists. I'm sure it will eventually tear off solving the remounting problem.
The directional buttons and OK key make an annoying and noisy click when pressed. No need of the aural feedback as there is plenty of tactile feedback. They fixed what was not broken.
You can re-name your activities with more characters than will fit on the LCD display. This means you can rename on your computer and then upload to the remote and finally find out half of what you wrote does not appear. No warning given. Dumb.
The off button is located top left when for right-handed people top right would be easier to use.
Overall the buttons just do not feel as good nor operate as reliably as the buttons on the 6xx remotes. Sometimes you press and nothing happens.
Styling-wise, the 5xx series is a success. In terms of practicality and intellegent design it is a step back from the comparably priced 659 and even the cheaper 628.
My advice, buy a 659 while you can or save up for one of the higher line 6xx models.
If there had been no 6xx series, I would rate the 5xx series with four stars because the Harmony concept is a great one. But given that Logitech took a step back from the 6xx series in designing the 5xx series, I can only give a three star rating.
 Next-generation Harmony remote not much better than the previous generation August 20, 2006
Matthew Buckley-Golder (Toronto, ON Canada)
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
This is my second Harmony remote, after I started to have problems with my Harmony 680 shortly after the warranty was up (I also reviewed this remote in detail on Amazon).
After trying a second, newer Harmony remote, I think I've decided that I don't like Harmony remotes. They have perhaps the best approach that I know of (with their Activities method) on the software side, but the hardware has left me unimpressed both times.
Since I already had a Harmony 680 and already had the software installed, connecting the 550 to my PC and uploading my configuration was all I needed to do to get things working.
My main complaint about this remote is that the buttons feel very fragile and they are very hard -- the buttons around the directional ring in the middle, in particular. When you push them, it's a hard "click" of hard plastic on hard plastic with very little feedback.
I expect this remote to break after about 1 year just like the Harmony 680 did. It feels like a remote that will break, just because it feels as though the remote gets trauma just by pressing the buttons on it. The tactile feedback is terrible on each of the roughly three different types of buttons that appear on this remote. All of the buttons are too hard to push. If you have big hands, you might be able to operate it with one hand. If you have small or weak hands, you will need two hands to operate it.
I like the look of this remote more than I did the Harmony 680. It feels OK in your hand as long as you don't press any buttons on it :)
It has a nice feature whereby it seems to detect being picked up. When you pick it up after some period of idleness, the remote lights up. Nice.
The display is hard to read in the dark, even though it's backlit. It's black text on a blue background. It might look nice in a photograph, but it is form over function.
There's no obvious way to turn off the bright blue flash that occurs every time you press a button.
Overall, I'm giving it 2 stars. I gave 3 stars to the Harmony 680, and I'm giving one less here because it's a newer generation that hasn't fixed any of the well-voiced concerns with the previous generation. It's no better than the Harmony 680. For controlling a Media Center, it's worse (although, to be fair, the 680 was designed as a Media Center remote, while the 550 makes no such claim).
Good concept but frustrating setup March 3, 2007
Ti_FL (Florida, USA)
9 out of 17 found this review helpful
I purchased this unit to control my various electronic devices.
Conceptually, this controller can turn on the TV, DVD player, press play for the DVD and allow for control of all of the TV / DVD players with one setting. Practically speaking, it is not a smooth operation and frequently, you have to switch to the TV setting to adjust the volume (even though you programmed it to work under the DVD profile).
Additionally, setup is through a USB interface which logs onto the internet to download the profile. It frequently hangs up requiring restarting of the program. When learning the IR button for programming it frequently freezes up. In this day and age of interfaces such as these, it should not have that many bugs in the operation.
I do not recommend this remote to anyone who isn't willing to 'work a lot' to get it set up correctly. I have worked with other remote controls at a fraction of the cost (under $25) of this model that sets up quickly and easily.
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