Harmony app screens used by my “Watch Apple TV” activity

And while Logitech offers a handful of Harmony remotes with buttons, touchscreens, and more, with prices starting around $30, you don’t even need a physical remote if you have the free Harmony app on an iDevice. The second awesome thing is that you don’t need to stick a dongle into your iDevice to use a Harmony system you’re your iDevice. Harmony can control over 270,000 devices in over a year of testing I’ve only found one device (an obscure four-source audio switch that had its own remote) that I couldn’t control via Harmony. Just fire up the Harmony app on your iDevice (or Mac or PC) and specify the make and model of the devices in the activity. Unlike other universal remotes I’ve tested, setting up Activities for your Harmony Remote couldn’t be easier. For example, my “Watch Cable TV” activity turns on the TV, set-top cable box, and AV receiver, and then sets the TV and AV receiver to the proper inputs for cable TV. The first are Activities, which turn on all of the appropriate devices with a single tap, switching each device to the proper input for that activity. In my humble opinion, two things make the Harmony products stand out. The bottom line is that Harmony is the first and only system I’ve tested that allowed me to toss my OEM remotes in a drawer and forget them, which means a lot to me. I’ve been testing physical remotes and the Harmony iOS app on two home theatre systems for over a year now and I can tell you with complete confidence that the Harmony system hits the trifecta - it’s easy to set up, capable of controlling all of my audio and video components (and 270,000 others), and is far more reliable than any app-and-dongle combo I tried. So I continued to deal with a large pile of OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) remotes until I discovered Logitech’s Harmony family of universal remote control devices.

While some of ‘em were easy enough to set up, none worked with all of the devices connected to my big screen TVs, and none lasted more than a couple of weeks on my coffee table. Over the past few years I’ve tried half a dozen iOS universal remotes that combine an app with a hardware dongle for your iDevice, but not one of them came close to meeting my criteria.

Reliable enough that I could throw the device’s original remote in a drawer and never miss it.

Able to control all aspects of all of my audio and video components.

For years I’ve been searching for the perfect universal remote control, one that was:

Harmony app for mac