Logitech Harmony 520 Advanced Universal Remote

You've got your whole world, in your hand.

This universal remote does, indeed, pack harmonious awesomeness. The slim Harmony 520 is powered by four triple-A batteries, has a blue back-light, and enough memory to control up to 12 devices from the ever-expanding 80,000 IR device profiles available.

When you flick it on for the first time, there’s a small interactive tutorial on the display. This familiarises you with several key buttons and explains their uses.

One such button you’ll mostly use is the ‘Activities’ button at the top of the unit. This is where a bunch of macro-heavy commands will reside after programming it. Don’t let that scare you, though. You barely have to sneeze for the creation of these macros.

Instead of selecting individual components, which is of course an option, you can just select the ‘Watch TV’ option and it’ll send all the necessary commands to the different devices in order to achieve a TV-watchable environment.

Let’s say you want to play a game on a console. From activating one button, it sends power-on commands to the console, the television, and the multimedia switch. Then, it switches over the video and audio to the appropriate channels and adjusts the volume to a gaming level.

It also sends the iRobot Roomba back to its charging base, dims the lights, and adjusts the air-conditioner to just the way you like it.

No, I’m not smoking anything. Basically, if it has an IR port, the remote either already has the device’s profile or it will soon, as Logitech is constantly updating its massive device database.

Of course, you can easily teach the software to use your mysterious piece of equipment, such as an IR-equipped pizza-delivery person.

Programming all of this incredible functionality is a breeze, however it does require a computer with an Internet connection, as it’s entirely updated and configured through your PC/Mac. The most difficult job is probably collecting the model numbers of your IR-controlled devices.

This is an extremely feature-rich and intuitive universal remote. Being able to change your entire environment through the press of one button
is quite an experience and edges closer to the future digital home.