To be honest, I was rather hesitant to buy another Harmony remote. I previously owned the Xbox 360 branded Harmony and was rather disappointed with it. It was slow, chewed through batteries, and had an issue of trying to switch inputs before the my TV was fully powered up which basically made the activity buttons all but worthless.

However, with a new home theater setup that more or less required most of my equipment to be behind cabinets, and my wife growing increasingly frustrated with the growing number of remotes in our living room (7 at the time I bought this), I decided to go ahead and take the $260 plunge on a Harmony 900 (it's regularly available for between $250 and $300, if you pay the full $400 MSRP you're getting ripped off).

After several weeks with the remote, I can honestly say that it's practically everything I'd hoped for. Unlike my previous Harmony, the activity buttons work exactly as they're intended. With one button press, all devices powered up for and all inputs aligned for precisely the activity you want. Every button on the remote can be configured independently for different activities, and the PC software used to do so seems much improved since my last experience with a Harmony remote. It's compatible with just about every device under the sun. And the RF capability works great with my components behind cabinet doors. What's more, my wife, who's not all that tech savvy, has had almost no trouble adjusting to it either.

I do have a few minor quibbles that keep this from being the perfect device though. For one, the macros that the activity buttons control can take a bit of time to run through completely, during which you must keep the remote pointed at all your IR devices. If you turn away for even a second, you could miss a crucial step that throws everything out of whack. Thankfully, the remote has a dedicated help button that will guide you through getting everything back in sync should this happen, but it can be frustrating nonetheless.

Also, the remote chews through batteries faster than ever. The charge base helps alleviate this, but two full days of use will leave the remote more or less drained without charging, and I worry about the life span of the included battery.

All in all though, the Harmony 900 is an excellent universal remote that really simplifies using multiple components and inputs in a home theater. If you've already spent, or are planning to spend, several thousand dollars on A/V equipment, set-top boxes, game consoles, etc... for a good home theater, I think it's well worth setting aside a couple hundred to get a decent remote like this that really improves the experience of actually using all that equipment.