Is Harmony's new 1000 remote a good alternative to AMX and Crestron?

[rlpiii]

Originally Posted by Lotus

It's a conspiracy to keep people paying too much money for Crestron.

While I love Crestron and it's capabilities it is way too expensive for 98% of the people out there.

The problem I have is not that the Crestron hardware is too expensive, it's the programming.

The programming costs being as much or more, for me, have made it hard to justify.
After paying for both hardware and software, my last quote was around $8k for a Crestron setup, which was 20% less from the one I got previously, but still high. The quotes were only covering the costs of one room's theater. If I was too pay $8k - $10k+, I would want to control everything in the house. And also, as Jerry said, every time I change out components another charge occurs if I want to be able to control the new component. It just seems there has got to be better way to do this.

Ken, the problems you having with the Harmony is exactly why I gave up on small less costly universal remotes years ago. I can not count how many hours I have spent programming, then pulling out batteries, watching them freeze up, making many calls to the manufacturer, getting new ones sent to me under the "warranty", then magically the old broken one starts to work for a while, etc. . . I was laughing when reading your post only because I have been there so many times.

About 5 or 6 years ago Yamaha was giving away a RAV (essentially a pronto) with the purchase of new receivers. This is the only universal remote I still use, but only for controlling lights and volume. I think the user interface is poor, it takes too long to go between devices with all the multiple menus and pages. Now, I just leave it on the lights page and use the soft keys strictly for lights and the hard volume keys for volume control on the Halcro.

[kennyt]

Originally Posted by rlpiii

Ken, the problems you having with the Harmony is exactly why I gave up on small less costly universal remotes years ago. I can not count how many hours I have spent programming, then pulling out batteries, watching them freeze up, making many calls to the manufacturer, getting new ones sent to me under the "warranty", then magically the old broken one starts to work for a while, etc. . . I was laughing when reading your post only because I have been there so many times.

About 5 or 6 years ago Yamaha was giving away a RAV (essentially a pronto) with the purchase of new receivers. This is the only universal remote I still use, but only for controlling lights and volume. I think the user interface is poor, it takes too long to go between devices with all the multiple menus and pages. Now, I just leave it on the lights page and use the soft keys strictly for lights and the hard volume keys for volume control on the Halcro.

I understand fully, I started with universal remotes with the original Pronto, and after hundreds of hours of programming got it to work my at the time simple system fairly well. I too need more hard buttons, and in fact use the Harmony 890 for my reference rig and couldn't be happier. This remote has been completely stable (now that I typed this it might screw up) for over two years, allows RF control w/IR relay to my devices and has plenty of hard buttons and is designed well.

While the 1000 has a niche, the 890 is the true pearl of the lineup and the one I recommend to those who ask me. IF for some reason people don't need/want RF then I recommend the 880.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by rlpiii

The problem I have is not that the Crestron hardware is too expensive, it's the programming.

The programming costs being as much or more, for me, have made it hard to justify.
After paying for both hardware and software, my last quote was around $8k for a Crestron setup, which was 20% less from the one I got previously, but still high. The quotes were only covering the costs of one room's theater. If I was too pay $8k - $10k+, I would want to control everything in the house. And also, as Jerry said, every time I change out components another charge occurs if I want to be able to control the new component. It just seems there has got to be better way to do this.

www.control4.com

That is your solution. For that price you should have your whole house automated and that is likely what it would cost. Including a nice tablet touch screen for the HT.

Make sure the wiring in your HT for dimming doesn't interfere with the quality of your setup.

[rlpiii]

Originally Posted by Lotus

www.control4.com

That is your solution. For that price you should have your whole house automated and that is likely what it would cost. Including a nice tablet touch screen for the HT.

Make sure the wiring in your HT for dimming doesn't interfere with the quality of your setup.

This looks really interesting. Have you used this yet?
It does look like what I'm looking for.
I need to give a local dealer a call.

[rolexdaytona]

this was a good read. I'm looking for a remote for my HTS once it's up and running. The problem I found with most universal remotes is that they don't allow you to access the menu of the device you want to control e.g. I want to turn the speakers off on the tv and change the input from cable to dvd. In order to do so I have to get the OEM remote from the tv to make the changes. Can these newer URC(universal remote controls) get into the menu option of the device(tv, cd player, dvd) to access items that need to be changed?
I went to the amx and creston sites and I wasn't to impressed with them. I would think more info on how to use their products would be there. Maybe I missed something.

[kennyt]

FWIW the Harmony's allow total control of all devices.