Electronics & Gadgets Blog
Logitech Harmony Elite, A Comprehensive Guide to the Ultimate Smart Home Remote
by Samuel Kalenga on Aug 09, 2024
The digital age has transformed our homes into entertainment and networking centres – but also given us more remotes to deal with. It has provided convenient entertainment on demand, with a plethora of streaming services and voice control. But, ironically, controlling these devices can turn the experience into a chore. Juggling the remotes of several devices, such as televisions, cables and streaming services, home hubs and sophisticated sound systems can feel like a constant battle. Netflix, Hulu, youtube, Amazon Alexa and Siri. It seems like you can’t control anything without a remote control! Having multiple remotes feels like it can delay everyone, turning it into a frustrating experience. That’s why some people prefer to use a unified control for all remotes in their control centre.
Logitech Harmony Elite: A Universal Remote for the Modern Home
The sleek black Logitech Harmony Elite is more than a remote control. It’s an all-encompassing system to help people achieve home entertainment harmony and simplicity. The system features a detailed, high-end remote together with a dedicated hub, which connects to your home network, providing central control over most devices in you home theatre and ‘smart home’ devices, too.Key Features of the Logitech Harmony Elite
Photo provided by the authorThe features of the Harmony Elite will make it attractive to homeowners with a technological bent:- Customisable activities: The ability to create custom ‘activities’ that send a single command to multiple devices is the most important feature of the Harmony Elite. Say you want to take some time off and kick back with a movie. Press one button and watch as your Harmony Elite not only turns on your television, cable box, and surround sound; it can also dim the lights and close the curtains to create a home theatre environment. You can create as many different activities as you like, from watching TV to listening to music, playing video games, or setting the mood for a romantic meal.
- Voice Control: The Harmony Elite also includes built-in integration with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, which allows you to issue commands to the Activity Centres with your voice. If your hands are occupied or you just want to stretch your legs, say ‘Alexa, watch HBO Max’ or ‘Hey Google, turn on the TV.’ Compatibility with one of the most common voice platforms on Earth is a lifesaver when your hands are full, or to when you simply just feel lazy.
- Smart Home Integration: Beyond entertaining, Harmony lets you control compatible smart home devices. Forgetting to turn off the hall lights downstairs before leaving for work can easily be corrected. And why not have them switch off as soon as you initiate your morning commute after checking the outdoor temperature? Or have all the lights switched on whenever you return home from work? And get your home ready for relaxing evenings at home by having them dimmed and the thermostat turned down a bit as soon as you pour a glass of wine. Smart home harmony is at your fingertips with Harmony.
- Intuitive Design: The Harmony Elite remote has a simple, elegant ergonomic design. Its bright colour LCD display gives clear information about what you’re doing and which devices you’re using. Its buttons are arranged for intuitive use, the remote is comfortable to hold, and its large clickable ‘home’ key brings everything together for a smooth and comfortable experience. Whether you’re surfing your TV channels, scrolling through packages of channels, or diving into the weedy menus of complicated electronics, the Harmony Elite will get you where you want to go.
- Multi-Room Control: Expand your Harmony Elite system with multiple Harmony Hubs to control devices in multiple rooms. Put the power of Harmony Elite to work in larger homes with multiple home theatre setups. Watch how you can control a whole home’s worth of entertainment equipment from one central location.
- Harmony Hub Extender: Extend the signal from your Harmony Hub further into your home if you have thick walls or large roomsAlthough the Harmony Hub works out of the box in most homes, Logitech offers add-on accessories as well, like the Harmony Hub Extender.
Why Choose the Logitech Harmony Elite?
If you’re looking for one of the best multi-device, powerful, and capable universal remotes, the Logitech Harmony Elite is a great choice for individuals and for families. Here’s why it’s one of the premium choices available:- Exceptional Device Coverage: The Harmony Elite has the broadest device coverage of anything I’ve seen. It boasts compatibility with ‘TVs, Cable boxes, Satellite Receivers, Streaming Media boxes (Roku, Apple TV, Chomecast and Amazon Fire TV), A/V receivers, Soundbars, Universal Remote Blast universal home controls (4, 5, and 6 series), Sonos Sound Systems, Bose Music Systems, Denon HEOS Music System, Philips Hue Lighting, Nest, and more’ and its regular updates mean that almost anything that you buy in the future will be supported too.
- Seamless control: This is where the Harmony Elite really nails it. A sum total of a compelling remote control, an awesome hub, and a series of activities that you can easily bind to different button combinations, it eliminates the need to fumble with multiple remotes ever again. From my experience, it is this sense of seamless use and destruction of obstacles that really helps you get into a state of amazement and sheer pleasure.
- Superior Customisation: The Harmony Elite is fully customisable, enabling you to take complete control how your remote control is configured. You can create the remote that works for you through custom buttons, labels and activity settings. Are there favourite channels that you want quick direct access to, or specific sequences of events and tasks (routines) that you want automated? No problem; the more you tailor your Harmony Elite to meet your needs, the better it will work for you.
- Smart Home Compatibility: The Harmony Elite works hand in hand with three major smart home ecosystems – Alexa, Google Assistant and HomeKit – making it easy to connect virtually anything to automate your entertainment system with your whole house, creating a single smart home control centre for your entertainment and home. Control the lights, the temperature, medics, alarms and more with a device you are already using for entertainment.
Exploring the Harmony Elite Components in Depth
The Harmony Elite Remote
The Harmony Elite is powered by a remote of the same name. It’s a beautiful backlit LCD screen with real buttons and a pleasing tactile heft. The Harmony Elite shows information about your activities, devices and services, as if it empathises with the failure of your dumb remotes. The buttons are large, in the right places and fun to press. You can hold on to the Harmony Elite comfortably for a long time. There’s an HDMI cable button for effortless routine tasks. And there’s a button for voice control, so when you join the club that’s using Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant to control their entertainment systems hands-free, you’ll be happy the Harmony Elite keeps pace. This remote is so lovely, it looks good quality. I like the big tactile buttons and how it tells you what you’re doing. It’s intuitive. It looks nice.The Harmony Elite Hub
The Harmony Elite Hub is the smart brain of the operation. This device links to your home network to serve as a hub for all your devices. A smart remote controller can talk to and touch multiple gadgets using IR, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. This hub is the reason why the Harmony Elite is so robust – it is the hub of the brain that operates the muscles of the superb functions of the system. The Harmony Elite Hub also comes with built-in presence detection. When you walk into the room, it turns on your entertainment system for you.The Harmony Elite Ecosystem: Extending Your Control
Logitech also sells several accessories and features that add to the remote and hub provided by the Logitech Harmony Elite system, such as:- Harmony Elite Remotes: You can add up to nine additional Harmony Elite remotes to your system for controlling devices in multiple rooms, or for family members. This is ideal for large homes with multiple entertainment systems that need to be managed. Having multiple remotes ensures that everyone in your family can access and control your entertainment system easily, no matter where they are inside of the home.
- Harmony Hub Extender: Use Harmony Hub Extender to extend any Harmony Hub to cover the whole home, even when walls are thick or your home is extra large. This is a must-have for bigger homes where the Harmony Hub may not provide the best reach with your majority of home devices to ensure smooth, effective control throughout your home.
- Harmony Elite Charging Cradle: When you buy the Harmony Elite remote with its gorgeous metal casing, you also get a charging cradle to keep your remote charged and handy. The remote snuggles into the cradle and is ready to work in an instant. The colour and design of the cradle are kept super-minimal to blend into the background of your home and keep your remote out of sight and out of mind until you need it.
- Harmony Elite 950: Purchase the Harmony Elite 950 if you want the Harmony Elite system experience but don’t want to pay for the flagship model.
- Harmony Elite 915 000256: This is the specific model of the Harmony Elite and it has all of the same features of the other Harmony elites. It is available at multiple retailers and you can also find it on Amazon and Best Buy.
Is the Logitech Harmony Elite Right for You?
The Logitech Harmony Elite takes this idea of a unified control centre a step further: if you’ve had enough of fumbling around for the right remote to fit your entertainment setup, and fail to see why you would need more than one to enjoy a movie or a TV show, then this wants-for-nothing remote is for you. If the idea of a simple and customisable hub for all your entertainment needs is appealing and you don’t mind paying the price, Logitech Harmony Elite is a deserving winner. For many others, cash-strapped or otherwise, however, this remains a luxurious and prohibitively expensive toy.Alternatives to the Logitech Harmony Elite
If the Logitech Harmony Elite is out of your budget, there are other universal remotes available, including:
- Looking for a more budget-friendly solution: Consider the sleek but affordable Logitech Harmony Companion, one of Logitech’s most popular Amazon devices. Like the Harmony Elite, the Companion is modular, meaning that you can swap out different devices as your wants and needs change, though it’s not quite as fancy as the Elite, and doesn’t come with as many smart home integrations.
- Logitech Harmony 650: Although it will work with smart home and voice assistants systems, the Harmony 650 is a simple universal remote. It is meant to be used with a small handful of devices, making it good for anyone looking to create a universal remote on a budget and without any smart home integration. Wirecutter recommends this remote as a good starter model for people interested in simple control of their TV, cable box, and streaming devices.
