Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Almost a month ago I paid over $1,000 for four hub based Harmony Logitech Remotes: Two Ultimate Home remotes (one white and one black) and one Ultimate One upgraded with the Smart Control and Ultimate Hub add-on. I have three A/V systems - in my bedroom, home gym and family room. I used the Ultimate One + Smart Control combination in my bedroom so that my wife and I could each have a remote on our side of the bed that would stay in sync with each other. I must say that the units are beautifully packaged and have a very attractive design. They feel good in the hand. I am somewhat of a techie and have had various learning/universal remotes over the years, and did not find the setup difficult. In fact, compared to past remotes in which setup involved hours of button pushing, the Harmony setup was a breeze. I was very impressed by the GUI interface - though the process of adding/editing devices and activities was agonizingly slow at times because of the sluggish slow-mo response of the iOS app during the setup stage. I was so excited to set-up and deploy these remotes in the three rooms and happy to tell my family about the new convenience we would all enjoy - no longer having to juggle multiple remotes and devices in each room. Everything seemed to work perfectly running the remotes through their paces after installation. Unfortunately the honeymoon did not last long. The first night I really used the remote to watch a movie I noticed there were times when I tried to pause or rewind the playback, and the commands did not work - the remote was frozen-up. Then, 10 to 30 seconds later the commands I had given would be executed and the movie would start executing the commands - the movie would pause, rewind, etc. Since I had pushed the buttons repeatedly the result was somewhat comical as the TV seemed spontaneously to be pausing, fast forwarding, etc. as it executed the command I had given 30 seconds ago. This problem exhibited itself with the volume control and other controls as well. The next week and a half were a nightmare dealing with first level Harmony (off-shore) tech support personnel who repeatedly ran me through time-consuming standard troubleshooting scripts involving resting and reprogramming the remotes - firmware updates, submitting logs to them - all with no result. Finally after multiple calls and many hours spent, I was firm in demanding that the matter be escalated to upper level support personnel. At first these upper level support people would not talk to me directly - until I became very insistent that I had no interest in speaking further to the "standard" support personnel. (I must say, however, that every support person I talked to - and there were many - were extremely courteous - in a uniform, scripted sort of way you might get in a nice "chain" restaurant.) I eventually found out that this is a firmware problem has existed for some time with Harmony touch-screen remotes. The upper-level Logitech Harmony engineers are well aware of the firmware bug that causes this problem - though the front line support personnel seem ignorant of the problem. See the following link on the Harmony support site which discusses the problem: http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Harmony-Hub-Based-Remotes/My-Harmony-Ultimate-is-very-slow-to-respond-when-i-tap-the/td-p/1243238 (Harmony was very reluctant to admit this problem existed so don't be surprised if the above link is taken down.) Just to be clear: this was NOT just a case of having gotten one defective unit. The freezing/delayed response problem was exhibited in all four of the remotes that I purchased. This is a universal firmware problem affecting this entire line of touch-screen remotes - and one which has been acknowledged to me by upper level Harmony engineers. The upper level support engineers had me submit my logs once again and told me that a firmware update was being worked on to fix the problem. They initially told me that the firmware update would be available in a couple of days. Then that estimate was extended to "within a week". Two weeks later, not having received notice of the update, they finally conceded that they no longer had an estimated date for the firmware fix and they would "be in contact with me" when it was available. During this saga I called in to the Harmony support line countless times. The support line is answered with a recorded greeting from the head of Harmony "customer experience" who offers his personal email address at the end of the greeting and invites callers to email him directly if their concerns are not satisfied. I started to copy this person on my email exchanges with support engineers. Then I wrote two emails directly to him outlining my frustrations, providing incident numbers, and seeking his assistance. The response was . . . crickets. It's been almost three weeks since I first reached out to this person and still I have received no response from him. So I must conclude that the invitation to contact him directly is simply marketing B.S. Who knows, maybe he is not even a real person. Of course, I returned all four remotes before the Amazon 30 day return window expired. Seeking another alternative I found that the reviews online for the Harmony 650 remote were generally very positive. Call me a glutton for punishment after all the problems I had with the touch screen Harmony remotes - but last week I purchased two of the (much cheaper) Harmony 650 remotes to try out in my bedroom. So far (knock on wood) the Harmony 650s seem to be working out very well. They are older tech and do not have all of the bells and whistles of the touch screen remotes. But so far at least they seem actually to work! I find that I prefer them ergonomically since they have "hard" number buttons which are much more convenient than the touch screen remotes which you have to swipe to unlock, then swipe a second time to access the soft number buttons. If you have any components inside a cabinet you will need to utilize an IR extender kit in order to use the Harmony 650. There are several highly rated IR extender kits available on Amazon for a modest price. And the Harmony 650 won't control your Nest thermostat or Phillips Hue lights - if you have them. But you can already control these devices from your smart phone - so this is not much of a sacrifice. Because of the good experience I have had this past few days with the Harmony 650s in my bedroom, I just ordered two more Harmony 650s to replace the Ultimate Home remotes I had tried unsuccessfully to use in my family room and home gym. My family room is a closed cabinet system so I also ordered an IR Extender kit for that location. Keep in mind that I have only had the Harmony 650s for less than a week. It is possible that problems might crop up. But if I end up having problems with the Harmony 650s I pledge to update this review with that information. I seldom write reviews and have certainly never written such an extensive one. But after all of the wasted hours and frustration these remotes caused me I felt somewhat of a civic duty to warn others of the serious problems they are likely to experience with these remotes. Update to prior review as of 1/21/2015: I have received support on this issue. There is a firmware update that Logitech has given me for the Ultimate Home(4.2.48), which has for the most part fixed the delayed response/freeze-up problems that I was having previously. With this fix, I can recommend the Ultimate One and Ultimate Home remotes.