Logitech Harmony 880 Universal Remote Review
Remote reviews always get me excited, but I tend to lose my enthusiasm after a power outage turns off my computer right before I press save. All rants aside, the 880 is an excellent remote and has the highest WAF in my home theater setup.
The Harmony series of remotes us an activity based system which is similar to a macro. However, after the activity is launched and all of your devices are turned on, they buttons are assigned to the proper devices. Channel keys to the TV or sat box or vlume keys to your receiver or TV are a couple of examples.
From the article:
Though the software creates some pre-canned Activities that make sense
for your hardware, you are not limited by these! You can define your
own Activities and they will appear in the main Activities menu on the
remote, and what you create can only be limited by your imagination.
For
me, when I have guests over I like to play a DVD on the TV, and play
streamed music from my HTPC. Using the Harmony's ability to define your
own "Utility" Activity, I programmed the Harmony 880 with an
Activity which plays a DVD, but sets the audio input on the receiver to
my computer.
If you have lights that are controlled by remote,
you can even make a "Barry White" activity which will dim the lights
and play the CD player. Really the possibilities are endless.