For anyone that has more than one or two components in their home entertainment system (i.e. most of us), having a good universal remote is important. Unfortunately the choices seem to be “powerful, convenient, and really pricey” or “affordable but barely does the job”. The remote we’ve been using for the last seven years, the Sony RM-VL900 (top right), definitely falls into the latter category. When we bought it, it was one of the more powerful remotes in the sub-$200 price range, and after many hours spent manually programming the various buttons I was able to get it to do most of what I needed. But… well… it never “just worked.” Turning all the components off is a little tricky, some buttons are programmed for functions completely unrelated to the button label (e.g. the “PIP” button is the TiVo “clear” function), and some functions just couldn’t be programmed into it, so we have to keep a couple of the old remotes around just in case.

A few days ago it became clear that this remote was finally on it’s last legs and so the dreaded moment had come to find a replacement. “Dreaded” because I didn’t want to have to go through the contortions required to train a new remote, this having always been an excruciating exercise that taxed even my considerable programmer skills, and because I really didn’t want to have to train Chris (my wife) to use the new remote, this having been even more painful in the past. (Mind you, that’s not saying anything about Chris. She is rightfully less-than-tolerant of kludged solutions that don’t work as well as they should.)

So it is with not a little bit of surprise that I’m delighted to report that I found a great solution. Logitech’s Harmony 880 remote (bottom right) has been around for a few years and so isn’t the top of their line by any means. However this means that it’s price has come down significantly. Where it used to be well over the $200 mark, you can now get manufacturer-refurbished ones for just $75. For the budget conscious, that may still be a bit on the pricey side but, *man*, is it worth it! Programming the remote involves simply plugging it into your computer, downloading/running the setup software, and then typing in the make and model of each of the devices in your system. Once done, the remote worked flawlessly for all 5 of the devices we have (Sony TV, DVD, and Amplifier; TiVo Series 2; and Motorola cable box).

The real testaments to it’s success as a universal remote however are that 1) it supports every function of the TiVo remote it replaces, and 2) it took all of 5 minutes to teach Chris how to use it!

Is it pathetic that I’m blogging about the wonderful new TV remote we have? Yeah, probably. But I’m really, really happy that what I thought was going to be one of those pain-in-the-ass chores turned out to be much easier than expected.

[Update: added remote picture, minor edits]