Xbox 360 remote vs Logitech Xbox Remote

D

Defective

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 5, 2002
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I am going to go the Vista MCE and Xbox 360 as an extender route for watching TV. Does anyone have any experience with Microsofts Xbox remote or the Logitech Harmony Xbox 360 Remote?

Both of them look fairly well laid out, but the Harmony does have alot of neat other features. The question is, is it THAT much better. Does Microsoft's remote work well?
 
the harmony is that much better if you have multiple components. if all you have is a tv and console, then its negligable. but being able to click a button and turn on multiple devices, set input, etc. its better. i have both and the ms universal remote sucks. it doesnt work right on my tv. the harmony works flawlessly

honestly, the harmony is that much better period.
 
I have the 360 remote, its the big one with the numbered buttons at the bottom of it, their is also a smaller evrsion without the buttons if i recall, all i can say is it works pretty good, but some of the buttons are in awkward places, but it does the job and i like it, granted I have never used it for MCE, i just use it for dvds on the 360, but it does work well.

If you buy the hd dvd player for the 360, you get a remote with it, just incase you are thinking about buying a remote and a hd dvd player.

Last but not least, it matches the 360 :) so I would say just use the MS remote, it even controls your tv and other things if you select the proper code for it to control your tv etc.
 
I have the 360 remote, the universal remote, and the harmony and the harmony wins by a large amount. the 360 universal remote (got it with the hddvd drive) controls my tv, but barely. the codes doesnt control everything. volume doesnt work right, some of the buttons doesnt do anything at all, and different smaller problems that ruins the experience. its like every other "universal remote" ive ever used. subpar at best.

the harmony is perfect. u can make any button do anything you want. you can setup activities to do things like play xbox360 that turns on your tv, sets the input, turns on the 360, turns on the receiver, and do pretty much anything else you can think of.

even if all you have is just the 360 and a tv, i think the harmony is more than worth it
 
ne0-reloaded said:
controls my tv, but barely. the codes doesnt control everything. volume doesnt work right, some of the buttons doesnt do anything at all, and different smaller problems that ruins the experience.
Click to expand...

I have the exact opposite experience, mine controls my tv and does everything my normal tv remote can do except turn on teletext which I dont use anyway, but the universal remote controls my tv perfectly.

I dont know how this remote compares to the other one that you both mention, but for me the ms remote does what it says it can do, are there other ones that are better on the market, probably yes but which ones I dont know, as I only use mine for controlling the 360 and also changing channels on my tv or turning the volume up and down when its closer to me than the normal tv remote = lazyness at its best :)
 
Thanks for the responses!

I have the 360, an HTPC, and a standalone DVD player, and other consoles all connected to my reciever. It sounds like I would be better off going with the Harmony. My only concern is, how is it at controlling an HTPC? It doesn't seem to have some of the buttons that the MS 360 Universal remote has. Is it easy to get the the guide, record, an perform all the the normal functions in MCE with the Harmony?
 
Defective said:
Thanks for the responses!

I have the 360, an HTPC, and a standalone DVD player, and other consoles all connected to my reciever. It sounds like I would be better off going with the Harmony. My only concern is, how is it at controlling an HTPC? It doesn't seem to have some of the buttons that the MS 360 Universal remote has. Is it easy to get the the guide, record, an perform all the the normal functions in MCE with the Harmony?
Click to expand...

ya its really easy, thats the thing about the harmony. you can make any button be anything. you're not stuck. you can select a pc as one of your devices. you just have to make sure you have an ir receiver connected to your pc though. i have an htpc, but its in the living room and i use my 360 as an extender. when i get my projector ill use my htpc then. here's a nice picture:

9705.jpg


you can have up 12 devices programmed into the remote. the name of the device (you pick the name) is shown in the lcd screen. you hit the left and right arrow to scroll through the different devices. on each device you can have up to 16 buttons (i think) show up on the lcd screen and mapped to do whatever. you can also have any of the static buttons on the bottom mapped to do whatever. you can setup activities (think macros) that will turn on or off any devices and have them configured anyway you seem fit. if the activity doesnt work right, you can hit the help button and it'll "debug" the problem. say you wanted an activity that turned on the tv, set it to component 2, turn on 360, turn on receiver, and dim lights (possible from what i heard) and things dont go right. the help will go through every step to make sure its working. and if you tell it a step isnt working (like it didnt turn on the tv or set it to the wrong input) itll fix that problem by itself w/o having to connect it to your pc.

itll also learn commands from another remote. so if for some reason a specific command isnt in the database, you can tech the command to the harmony and itll save it for you into your online account. oh and the customer service dept is fuckin amazing. i called them 1 day because i was having a problem and spoke to the nicest customer service ive ever met. im surprised it wasnt someone from india or something. and she was really smart too. she wasnt reading from a manual. every question i asked she not only answered it promptly, she walked me through doing it button by button. and when i still coundt figure it out, she logged into my account, fixed the issue, and ill i had to was connect the harmony to pc and sync it up. plus she sounded cute too.

the only reason i bought one was i feeling crappy 1 day and i decided to treat myself and by the remote and the add-on. i would have never ever thought a remote was worth $100 but damnit ill never go back. theyre really well built too. i havent had 1 problem with it. once you get it setup to the way you like, your set. and as long as it doesnt physically break, youll always be able to control any new device you buy. its a must have for any home theater. theres not many things thatll ill cosign and become a fanboy of, but damnit the harmony is the best part of the ht experience. if i could teach it give me head, my girl would be gone

edit:

to be fair ill point out its weaknesses too.

1) theres a bit of delay when using the remote, about a few ms. after a couple days i got used to it, but some people feel its anoying. you can drop the response time to make it faster, but the issue is so small that i dont see a reason to waist 5 minutes to figure it out

2) to have a device in an activity, the device is powered on automatically. usually this isnt a bad thing, but with the 360 hitting the green button boots it directly into mce. if you have that as an activity, itll turn the 360 on, then use the mce command. but by that time the 360 is either at the dashboard or in a game.

you can teach it the mce code and add it to the list of commands for turning on the tv, but it didnt work right for me. i could call cust service but i dont feel like bothering.

3) longer activities take a while to complete, like 5-7 seconds while everything is being turned on. quicker than using multiple remotes, but not instant like i assumed. your supposed to keep the remote pointed at the devices while this is going on, but ive never had issues with it not being pointed ymmv

but even with these 3 probs, id give it a 9-9.5/10
 
Thanks again!

You've sold me. Harmony it is! I'll pick it up when I've got everything else working together. You're setup is similar to what I am going to do.
 
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