- We all have way to many
remote controls at home.
Now universal remotes aren't anything new.
They've been around for a
long time, but they've also
kinda sucked for a long time, right?
Until now, I finally
found something I like.
Let's go take a look, but
first be sure to subscribe.
Now you ready? Remotes, let's go.
(modern music)
So let's start in the
bedroom, as we always should.
In the bedroom, I'm using the
Logitech Harmony Companion.
So this one's 150 dollars.
Not inexpensive for a
universal remote for sure.
So this actually is probably my favorite
designed device that I've ever used.
The design and the curves
of this are beautiful.
I love the way they did the Companion.
It feels really good to hold.
I actually kind of want
it to be a phone. Try it.
Go to a store, you'll see
exactly what I'm talking --
Hello, yes, I'd like to
-- no sell, not buy, sell.
It really is that
comfortable; feels great.
Now, this is sort of just your typical
remote control, right?
It has buttons and it has buttons.
There are no displays on it.
There's no touchscreen.
It's relatively simple in that respect.
But once you set it up with your phone,
you can pretty much do whatever you want
with these buttons.
It's a remote control.
You have numbers down on
the bottom which actually
I never even use anymore
since I've cut cable
and don't change directly
from a channel number
to another channel number.
The really cool thing up here
though are the smart buttons.
So, I can control connected lights
and connected outlets
with the remote control
which is great especially in the bedroom.
Late at night I want
to turn the lights off,
but I don't want to have
to yell over to Alexa,
"Hey Alexa, turn off all the lights."
So I just do it straight
from the remote here
Super simple, love it.
Now this one is not rechargeable.
It does have a battery down on the bottom.
And It's just one of those
little button batteries.
You can buy these anywhere,
so that's helpful.
I haven't actually changed it out yet,
so it's lasted a while, but eventually yes
I will have to change it.
Again, 150 dollars.
Not cheap, but it works great.
This is definitely the first one
I would recommend you try.
So this is the Harmony Elite.
This is what I've been
using in the living room.
Ant I tell ya, I like it a
lot out there for this reason,
and this is what makes it so expensive:
It has a touch screen.
It has a display right here
and once you get it all setup
it will show all your devices right there
in the touch screen.
It will show all your activities,
and it makes it really easy for anybody
whether it's your wife,
your kids, whoever.
They can see exactly what
devices they're going to be using
and what activities they can launch.
So that's really cool and
that makes it even easier.
And for common area like a living room
it makes a lot more sense.
You can still control smart lights and
connected outlets with these
button down on the bottom.
You have a D-pad, you have
play-pause, all that stuff.
But really, it's the
addition of the touch screen
that makes this one good
chunk more expensive
at 350 dollars.
This is not a cheap remote control.
So this one is rechargeable.
It plugs into the base very simply,
but it also makes it really
easy to find the remote
when it's in the charger, so good deal.
And you just charge when you need to.
Another important piece
of all this is the hub.
So this is what let's the remote
do anything with the connected products.
With Philip Hue lights, Wemo outlets --
two things we've looked at by the way.
And the way it works
is the remote will then
talk to the hub, the hub
talks to the internet,
and that fires off the commands
to your connected devices.
So the remote fires off to this,
this fires off to any other devices that
the remote can't necessarily
see by line of sight.
So setup is where universal
remotes used to be a huge pain.
I've done some really
bad ones over the years,
and even Logitech's
previous generation was
a little more difficult
than I liked it to be.
You had to plug it in to the computer
and do everything that way
and then wait for it to sync.
Well now we have smartphones
and that pretty much
takes care of everything here.
It's all gonna be done on your phone
all through the Harmony app.
You're going to setup all your devices.
You can add them manually or
it will pluck them out of your wifi
and add them automatically
which is kind of cool.
And then you'll take those
devices and create activities.
So, groups of devices and tell
things how to work together.
You can also use the phone
app to control everything.
You don't even need the remotes.
You say, "Alright, when
I watch TV I want you
to turn on the TV and
set it to this input.
I want you to turn the receiver or
turn on the soundbar or whatever.
And then turn on this
other streaming box."
Whatever devices you
need, it'll set them up
in the right order and then
let you tweak things as needed.
My only real complaint here
is that it's kinda slow.
It's slow to sync, it's
a little slow to log in,
and the menus go really deep.
There are a whole bunch of options
and a whole bunch of different
ways to change things
and every now-and-then I
kinda forget where things are.
So that's it. That's what I'm
using in my living room has
made watching TV and using all these boxes
and devices so much simpler.
Thanks for watching. Be sure to subscribe.
See ya next time.
(modern music)
