Harmony 700 - Page 2

Sorry to hear about the small OK button, that's stupid design. In terms of the Exit button below, it's a more accepted norm coming from other remotes.


It would be a perfect remote with an eight-device limit agreed, but the good news is that it's already $115 on eBay, where I will purchase it this week.

The reviews say that the same cable that's used to connect the 700 to a computer (USB) is also the cable that hooks into the charger. So can this thing charge *from* the computer?

Meaning this: If I leave the cable connected to a free USB port on my computer (an iMac), can I charge the 700 from there? So technically I wouldn't need the wall unit at all then, would I?

I think you can...I'm going to test it as soon as the battery runs out...but I've had it for over a week now and it's still going strong...I just know it will run down tomorrow while I need it for the NFL games...

I'll report back either way as soon as they need a recharge...

batteries finally ran out...I plugged it into my laptop and it gave me a message that it's ready to learn a command from another remote (?)...I plugged it into the wall and it gave me the icon for charging the battery...

so my guess is you cannot charge the battery from the USB port on a computer...I do have a usb hub with a power plug to charge things...but it's not on a computer that is convenient to use as a charger...easier for me to just plug it into the wall...

After playing with the 700 now for a while, I finally figured out what was bothering me about the layout and re-mapped the buttons to fix it...

if you have and use the DirecTV remote in another room, you're going to have trouble...on the DirecTV peanut, you have:

the skip/slip button is on top of the FF
the repeat (skip back) button is on top or Rewind

this is the opposite on the 700 (FF is on top of skip forward and rewind is on top of skip back).

the DirecTV layout makes more sense (or maybe I'm just more used to it)...I kept pressing the wrong thing on the 700...so I remapped the 700 to match the layout of the DirecTV peanut...

I got my 700 on Saturday from Amazon Vine. My first observations are , what's up with the cable? I've had a bunch O Harmony's and they all use a standard USB cable. Why change now? Also why no battery indicator? It'd be nice to know? Maybe it turns on when it's needing a charge but still it's comforting to see it. The build seems cheap, in my book $150 is not $19.95, it should be better built. If the One is priced anywhere near this, get the One, IMHO.
I'll post a full review on Amazon when I'm done testing.

I just got one too, replaced an older model. I think the build is fine, and it works great -- imported my old settings, and I was good to go.

BTW, the USB is just a standard Micro-USB instead of Mini-USB .. I have plenty of both laying around the house. Its not a huge deal. Both are standards.

nice

How is usb charging with the 700?

It won't charge off a computer. Has to be plugged into the AC power brick. But it works fine

So no usb charging at all?

no usb charging...

How do u know when the 700 is done charging?

When the green battery on the screen is all filled up with a check mark in the center

what are the 4 color buttons? are they self-assignable for whatever you want?

Don't have any devices with color buttons? 360, BluRay, DVR?
Hard buttons for those now. Same on 900.

you can use them for Directv's DVR color buttons or a 360 (as posted above)...they are assignable to anything you want as well...so, really, it's an extra 4 buttons to do with as you please...

I've fiddled with a 700 in the store. The buttons seem a bit squishy/soft to me. Has anyone else felt that way?

Meh, not really. They do feel different than my old 659 buttons, but they work fine.

Is there a way to have channel icons on the screen or not? They appear in press photos of the remote and in specification lists. If so, how?

You can, but you have to add the icons manually. There is a nice site set up with a lot of pre-designed icons. Its a bit time consuming, but I've spent the time setting up my GF's favs so its easy browsing:

http://www.iconharmony.com/icons/wat...ory=harmony700

Follow the directions on that site, you do this from within the Harmony Remote software on your computer, then sync the remote up.

Thank you. Added channels and icons in about 10 minutes. Worked great. Feel kind of stupid.

Don't feel stupid. It was new to all of us back when. BTW Randy (squareeyes) prowls these forums so if you have any icon wants just ask.

Yea I sat there for 20 mins at first entering channel numbers and cursing it because the FOX icon showed up for each one :-)

I think six devices is an artificial limit placed on this remote by the software. I had an older remote with more than six devices, including some obsolete devices that I don't even own anymore. When I switched over to the 700 with the "replace remote" option, all my devices showed up on the remote! Of course, the software complains that I'm at my device limit and won't let me add any new devices. Right now, I have ten devices on my 700 remote.

+1

Six devices will cover the needs of 90% of all users, so what's the issue here?

1. Monitor
2. AV Receiver
3. PVR/STB
4. Blu-ray player
5. HD-DVD player
6. Internet Radio (Squeezebox)

The listing above is my system. I will eventually get rid of the HD-DVD player. And Internet radio will one day be included in all AVRs, so then I'm down to four devices. Time to put your system on a diet.

The issue is the previous models had 12 or 15 devices for the same price or less. It's just a marketing ploy to force that other 10% to the 900. Probably a sound business decision for logitech, but bad for the consumer. I'm using 12 devices (add lights, htpc, DVD recorder, AV/Switch, etc. to your list) on my $100 harmony. If I upgrade, I'll have no other choice but the $400 model in the harmony lineup. So in my case, I'd probably switch brands altogether before I'd pay that kind of money. Even if I did, they've also crippled the 900 by removing sequences. So now they simply don't offer a model that suits all my needs. There were plenty of old models that did.

As for putting your system on a diet, I'd never build my system around a stupid remote. It's the other way around. There are plenty of remotes that can handle a system with more than 6 devices very easily, including a $10 POS remote I have. And that cheap remote can do 15 step sequences when the harmony can only do 5 steps. So just because logitech decides to cripple their new models in the name of greed, I'm certainly not going to retire any of my AV equipment to suit their misguided whims.

I really like the look and layout of this remote. I'm looking for one to replace my DVR remote in the bedroom (using a One if the family room). I only have 3 devices in there so this would work fine, but I was hoping for something a little cheaper. Looks like I'll have to wait for the prices to come down some more.

Assuming that Logitech will eventually fix the more-than-six-devices-when-you-upgrade loophole...

I wonder if I can create my own device that includes both the audio receiver and the TV. Other than changing inputs on both and adjusting the volume, there's not much else I need to control. That way, I'll be using one remote device to control two real devices.