Krempasky.com

Wow. That’s all I can say. I’ve been in various electronics stores over the past few months, and keep seeing these ridiculously expensive remote controls. $150-$400 for a universal remote? That must be for people that spend $10,000 on home theater equipment, I thought.

Not so. I bought the Harmony 670 yesterday, and have to say it’s one of the coolest gadgets I’ve ever purchased. Sit down with a laptop – logon to the Harmony website and create an account. Then from there – there’s a VERY simple web wizard with a near-inexaustible database of devices to choose from. Just start inputing your components, tv, the works. Then plug your remote in via mini USB, and download all the data. Basically idiot proof and error free in my case.

But the best part is the operation strings you can keybind. Now – I press “watch TV” and the following happens: 1) tv comes on, 2) switches source input to HDMI. 3) cable box comes on, 4) all the keys on the remote now function to control the cable/dvr/etc. (*except volume* which is bound to the tuner), 5) tuner comes on and switches source input to TV/Sat.