gdgt

I have had my Harmony One remote for a little over a month now and after the initial setup I was using it to control all of my devices easily, including an Xbox 360, a PS3 (with the Harmony adapter), a front projector, cable box, receiver and a Lutron light dimmer switch.

The remote itself is very solid., The buttons have a good feel and are easy to locate by touch. The weight is substantial and makes the product seem like it could take some abuse.

The touchscreen is responsive and bright, but only allows for a few activities per page. The screen is also small enough that if you have large fingers you have to be careful to hit the correct button or icon. Being able to upload image files for the icons of your favorite channels is great. You can fit 6 favorites per page, and three pages per favorites activity, so if you want to store more than 24 channels, you will need to divide your channels into subsets of some sort.

The charging station works well and has a built-in light to find your remote in the dark, but it is a bit on the large side and I had trouble finding a good place for it. Also note that if you plan to set the remote in the dock when not in use, as I do, you may need to come up with some creative way to run a power cord to your coffee table/seating area to make things as easy as possible.

The software wizard works well to add your devices to the remote, and to add favorite channel icons for the touchscreen, which is where the One really shines. If you have a basic setup you can probably add and create the activities that you'll need with the wizard without any problems in about 10 minutes, though adding the favorites is a somewhat longer process.

Where I've run into trouble, however, is when I've found that one of my devices is not quite working the way I'd like, or responding quickly enough to commands, etc with the basic activities setup. Each activity that you create begins with one of several basic activity types, such as a "Watch TV" activity, or a "Play Game" activity. These can be customized to a certain extent, but depending on which base activity you begin with, the customization options differ slightly, which can get confusing at best, and extremely frustrating at worst.

The nice thing about a popular product such as the H1 is that communities such as the folks at the AVS forums (and hopefully folks right here at GDGT as well!) are willing to help people to navigate these customization issues. I would, however, prefer it if Logitech's Harmony software had some activity setup options that were more open ended, and not tied to a predetermined activity type that needs to be worked around.

Another example of a setup issue that I ran across was getting the key delay when changing channels to be fast enough. The true meaning of such settings as the "inter key delay" vs "intra key delay" in the sofrware are not very clear, and it seems like something like "Delay Time Between Channel Numbers" would be more descriptive for novice users, and should be available without diving so deep into the advanced options of an activity...

But enough of my nitpicking!

Overall, despite some learning curve issues with the software, this is an excellent product once you take the time to get it working 100%. The only remaining problem I have is that I keep dreaming up more complicated activities and sequences that I'd like to create!

Highly recommended.

Pros:
+Great feel and build quality
+Favorite Channel icons on the touchscreen - Don't know how I lived without them
+Easy to get up and running for basic activities
+The value of one-button control of your system can't be overstated

Cons:
-Docking station is large and may be difficult to find a home for
-Touchscreen may be a bit small, especially for those with large hands
-Software is not as intuitive as it should be for customizing activities