All hail Logitech! For they have answered our prayers by releasing their Harmony adapter for PS3 in Australia. At least, they will at the end of June.
If you own even the most basic of home theatre setups, you should own a universal remote control. One button on one remote to switch between your DVD player, your DVR or your games consoles makes your home life so much easier. But which remote should you choose? Logitech have all but cornered the market with their Harmony remotes, but do you really need to spend $900 on the top of the line 1100i? Or will the $130 525 do the job. We put them up against eachother to find out.
The Gadget: An IR to Bluetooth adaptor for the PS3, letting you use any Logitech Harmony universal remote to (finally) control your PlayStation 3.
Logitech just spilled an upcoming adaptor that’ll let you use any Harmony remote with the PS3. Not many details (price/date), but it’ll do the usual Harmony magic and won’t swallow a USB port. [Blogitech]
Logitech’s 1100 goes above and beyond its predecessor with a black anodised aluminium finish and the ability to customise the controls on the 3.5-inch touchscreen.
Logitech has quietly released a new entry-level universal remote, the Harmony 510, for $US100. Looking quite similar to the Harmony 550, it offers basically the same features as the rest of the Harmony 500 with a slightly different button layout and a lower price. You should be able to find this online for less than the list price, so if you’re in the market for one of the more basic Harmony remotes, this might be a good bet. [CNET]
Forget about big screen TVs and surround sound speakers – the real heart of any home theatre setup is the universal remote. If you’ve never experienced the joy of pressing one button to turn on all the necessary components and select the appropriate inputs, ShoppingSquare has some great deals on Logitech universal remotes.
The Harmony 785, which RRPs for $400, is yours for under $150, while the Harmony One can be yours for $270. Rounding out the offers, you can pick up the Harmony 1000i for $280, down from $700.
To top it all off, they’re offering shipping for just $1. If you ever want to own a home theatre setup, this is probably as good a deal as you’re ever going to get on a decent universal remote. Sure, they won’t do the whole home automation thing, but for this price, could you really expect it?
[ShoppingSquare - Thanks Joel!]
If you absolutely refuse to let either a Mac or Windows inside your Penguin home, but still want to use a Logitech Harmony universal remote, there are now two solutions for you. The first is Concordance, a cross-platform application that runs on Linux to let you program your remotes without having to run any icky, icky corporate-backed operating system. The second is to get some therapy, because being so adamant about absolutely not using Windows or OS X even for 10 minutes to program a remote is probably signs of deeper problems. [Phil Dev via Hackaday]
