Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Access your entire Home Entertainment system with just one button. Everyone from the kids to the babysitter can now enjoy the full home theater experience. Simply select an activity, and your Harmony universal remote will send the right commands so you don't have to juggle remotes or remember a sequence of buttons. There's even a handy Help button to guide you through simple troubleshooting and get you back in control. The Harmony universal remote is the world's only remote with Smart State Technology activity control. Just press one of the Activity buttons, such as Watch TV or Listen to Music, and your Harmony universal remote automatically sets up your entertainment system.



Accessories:
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Accessories:

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• SANUS SYSTEMS VM2B LCD Mount with Extension and Articulation
• Terk HDTVa Indoor Amplified High-Definition Antenna for Off-Air HDTV Reception
• MONSTER MCC AVL300-S Home Theater & Lighting Controller 300 With Omnilink
• Monster MCC AV100 Activity-based A/V Home Theater Controller

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Related Items:

• PlayStation 3 Blu Wave Remote
• HDMI Cable 2M (6 Feet)
• Logitech Harmony 880 Advanced Universal Remote Control
• Cables To Go - 40315 - 2M (6.5ft) Velocity HDMI Digital Video Cable (Blue)
• Samsung LNT4661F 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
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Rating: - Overrated remote
I've had a few universal remotes in my day, and this is probably one of the most overhyped I have ever tried. I assume people have not used universal remotes before trying this one. It's the only explanation I could come up with. Yes, it's better than using 5 different remotes, but considerably worse than a lot of comparably priced universal remotes on the market.

I foolishly chose the 550 because it looked the least cheesy of all the Logitech products at the time (under $100 at least). But I paid for my hubris.

I've owned this for about 9 months now I guess.

Positives:
Looks good. Nice compact unit.
Relatively easy to set up.
Price (relative to other units)\

Negatives:
Horrible build quality. Unit started creaking within a week's use. Buttons feel cheap and button press response is horrible.

You HAVE to use "glow" almost all the time...almost impossible to use this unit in the dark "by feel" like many other units.

Even when using "GLOW", the screen is extremely hard to read. Resolution and contrast is the worst I have seen on any unit.

Buttons are way too small

I think that's enough, though I could go on. Save your money and get the One...looks to have improved on most of my complaints about the 550.

Or get a Universal Remote Control MX-450

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Rating: - Very good but not intuitive to use
* The remote is not very intuitive to use especially when using as part of an \"activity\". I am a software engineer by profession and I was able to get the hang of it fairly quickly - you might even say I enjoyed \"programming\" the remote. But my wife and kids hate it. They thought that it was way too difficult to use - the Watch a DVD activity is horribly complex.

I changed all the default settings - the operations associated with the soft buttons - in the remote for my TV and DVD player so that the most obvious and frequently used operations were available on the first \"page\" for each device. For example, in the default setting for my TV, the Power Off and Power On options were in the 9th page! I moved these options to the first page.

Overall, it is possible to make the remote fairly simple to use (my wife and kids are used to it now) but there is a price you have to pay for the flexibility of using a single remote. I accept it (flexibility vs. complexity) as this is something I live and experience everyday as part of my job. However, I am not sure that this would be acceptable to everyone else.
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Rating: - geat remote
I have the 880 also and this is a great seond room inexpensive remote. A little hard to read the display bur you soon learn where things are and don't even need the display. Works well with all my hardware and love the ease of setup thru usb port on line.

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Rating: - Cheapest decent Uni-Remote out there
* You cannot beat the price of this thing. It is pretty easy to program as long as you don't like to customize things too much. It works with pretty much device you can think of, and lights up when it senses movement so you can see it in the dark and you don't have to fumble for the \"Backlight\" button. It's very thin and attractive, and suprisingly has withstandad countless spills by various liquids, and even two hot wax spills, yet it still looks great and works fine after cleaning it off. ...

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Rating: - great at times, spotty most times
I got this Logitech remote about 18 months ago, and have waited long to write this review. The Logitech online / PC-based interface to set up the remote is very simple. It appears to have most current electronics products. It definitely has my Denon AV Receiver, JVC HDTV, Sony components and Gefen HDMI switch. Well I've had problems from the start with the Sony ES CD-R deck, the Sony ES tape deck and the Gefen switch. Even though the exact models are on the Logitech database, for some reasons, the controls listed ont he remote after sett-up are not what are needed to operate the devices. For example, for my Gefen 2-to-1 HDMI switch, I require just a toggle switch ("1" or "2" for the 2 sources). But the 550 remote gives me 10 input sources for some reason. I've reprogrammed it over a dozen times, but it doesnt seem to want to set the input sources correctly. I've tried to manually set the number of devices, but then it doesn't work right. And after 18 months of once/twice a week use, the buttons on the volume control especially are starting act weird... while they dont actually get stuck, it's very close to being so. I chose not to pay the extra for a remote with e color screen (where's the utility in that?), but I'm now wishing I'd spent the money on a real higher end remote...