gf-tech.com

This past weekend my mom bought a new Logitech Harmony universal remote. It is a pretty fancy unit. Internet programmable, USB upload, controls pretty much every electronic device in your house.

Too bad Logitech totally screwed it up. Way too comlicated to set up. Even for me. I never have problems configuring and customizing software, yet this thing took me over two and a half hours to get completed. The first hour was just getting the software installed. Holy crap.

The first step was to plug in the remote to the computer and have it instal some USB related crap. Then I popped in the install disc and ran the the setup and got the software install going. Next thing I know the remote needed its firmware upgraded. OK. Fine. Go, do it. The firmware upgrade completed, the software install finished, and it was time to configure the remote.

Opening the software it started up and had me create an account on their website. It asked for some irrelevant data like where I heard of them and where I purchased the remote. It was mandatory. Why is it necessary to use the remote control to tell Logitech where it was purchased? I just filled in some randam crap that is useless to them.

When I eventually got to run the software, it checked for a newer version, and found one. It downloaded version 5, but it required that the previous version be uninstalled first. Thankfully the software automatically started the uninstall process. The resulting wizard had 3 options. Install, repair, or uninstall. Of course repair was chosen. Being unsure, I changed the selection to uninstall figuring I could always start over if that messed something up.

Apparently that was the right decision. Version 5 was then installed.

Finally I am ready to start configuring the remote.

I entered all the devices, manufacturers and model numbers, then confirmed each of the related settings (ie watching tv means turn off all other device, set the tv input to be the tuner). I had to confirm the setting for watch tv, watch a dvd, watch a recording, listen to cd, and listen to the radio. Upload the setting to the remote, and away you go.

Except that the watch dvd didn't work properly. I had to spend an hour figuring out that the remote was somehow flipping the tv to the auxilary input, then back to the tuner when going to watch a dvd. A whole hour to figure out how to make the remote use a different command that the tv understands. 2.5 hours of my time spent configuring a damn remote control. To top it off, version 5 of the software was crap. Slow as molasses, counter intuitive, not what I would call user friendly. Lots of time was spent waitng for the program to respond. Version 5 was an ActiveX control inside a branded internet explorer. It was made to look like a regular app, but didn't act like it. Click on next, wait for the refresh. Choose option, click on next, wait for the refresh. Not what you were looking for? Too bad, hit back, wait for the refresh. Too much time waiting for the app to refresh.

Way, way too complicated. Why couldn't the boxed remote and the boxed software just work together. Why did they have to be upgraded right away? Obviously they were released at the same time, so it would make sense that they should work.

Anyway, in the end I figured it out, but I just had to rant about the stupidity of the whole thing. There is no way my mom could have figured that out for herself (she even said so). If she had attempted it, she would have ended up returning it, and most likely would have thought twice about any other Logitech products. A simple concept turned ugly.