Bought one of these about a week ago Harmony One.

Absolutely cracking piece of kit, really well thought out.

Basically, it’s a remote control. But it’s much more than that (goodness, I sound like an Apple advert!).

You connect the remote up to your computer when you first buy it, use their VERY simple software to select all the devices you own, then spend a little bit of time customising what you want the remote to do.

I can now control every device I own with one remote (including macbook, xbox and all the usual suspects like TVs, AV receivers, projecors, hifi’s etc).

But, and this is the really useful part, you can set up “activities”.

So I have one which is “watch movie”. And it’s set up so that when i push that button on the touch screen, it turns on my xbox 360, my HD projector to cinema mode and my av receiver to optical input mode. All at the same time.

Like wise, if i push “watch tv”, it will turn on my plasma TV, Sky box, AV receiver to TV mode.

Anyone who has a home cinema type set up would love this because it saves the usual faffing about with 3 or 4 remotes to get going.

I’ve set up all sorts of combinations for listening to music and watching things on TVs/projectors.

I collected up a total of 11 remote controls, which are now buried in a drawer.

OK, so it’s only a remote control, but for £99, it’s pretty functional and cool!

/geek mode

it still cant push the power button my amp for me. so for that reason, Im oot. 😉

but for £99, it’s pretty functional and cool!

For £99 it should massage your back and neck while you watch them! 😉

yeah, it’s not very environmentally friendly since it does encourage you to leave everything on standby, but then again i live in the most environmentally “un”-friendly house in the world, so i’m not that fussed 😉

+1 – had mine for ages now 🙂

There is a Help key which goes through all the components you are controlling in case you get them out of sync.

But when you first press it it then says “Did that fix the problem?” – what the heck does it do as it hasn’t asked about any components yet?

Wow! You take sitting on yer arse really seriously, don’t you?

Like wise, if i push “watch tv”, it will turn on my plasma TV, Sky box, AV receiver to TV mode.

I just turn the TV on.

The power button on our TV is missing and the screen is covered in jammy handprints. If I spent £100 on a remote control it would end up in the toilet.

Wow! You take sitting on yer arse really seriously, don’t you?

Almost as seriously as I take playing on push bikes. 😀

yeah, it’s not very environmentally friendly since it does encourage you to leave everything on standby

Just buy some Bye Bye Standby plugs or something similar. If you can find ones that work off Infrared then you could use the remote to control those too.