Harmony One for the Hopper

All harmonys work the same (except the 200/300). So get the model with the correct number of devices. The One is overkill in your situation and is $175. It's an 18 device remote. You only have 5 devices. The 600 will do everything you need and is only $45. Go up the ladder if you want more features (color screen, rechargeable battery, RF, etc.). The 700 has nearly all the features of the One but has fewer devices and is half the price. As others have said, a drawback of the somewhat outdated One is the lack of colored buttons. They take up valuable LCD screen real estate on the One, whereas they are real buttons on newer models (600/650/700/900).

A universal remote like harmony has several advantages over the Dish remote, namely every function for every device can be accessed via named buttons on the LCD screen, plus it has macro (activity) capability. Macros greatly simplify the operation of your system. For example, it might take several steps and several remotes to watch a DVD (turn on tv, turn on DVD, turn on stereo, pick the correct input on the tv, pick the correct input on the stereo, pick the right sound field, etc.). With macros, this can be done with a single button press. Plus harmony remembers what inputs were last selected and what devices are on or off and sends only the commands it needs to go from one activity to another (from watch tv to watch DVD, for example).

Although harmony is a great remote and very easy to program and use, they do not have a monopoly on macros. URC, One-for-all, Xsight, Philips, Sony all make very good remotes with macro capabilities. The $15 RCA RCRP05B is a very capable remote with macros, redefinable keys, volume punch thru, learning, etc. They are programmable from a computer like harmony with the addition of a $5 cable. The only thing they lack compared to harmony is an LCD screen, so you have to remember what functions you assigned to what buttons (each button on the RCA can have up to 5 functions per device mode: single press, double press, long press, shifted press and double shifted press).

My personal favorite is the Xsight Touch made by UEI (the same company that makes the Dish remotes and millions of others for cable and sat companies). It has nearly all the features of the One but is only $50-$70. One big advantage of the Xsight is it's one-button macro capability (what logitech calls sequences). For example, if you want to make a CC button that toggles captions on the Hopper, you just program those 6 steps in a macro and you're done. On harmony it's much more difficult because you have to use some tricks to get around their 5 step sequence limit. It may even be impossible on harmony because of the delays required between certain steps.
 
I personally would steer anyone away from the xsight remotes! One it is so much mor clunky, and non-intuitive than the logitech. I had the model right below the touch. Same remote except it had physical buttons next to the color screen. I hated it. Ended up giving it away. Not sure if the touch was rechargeable, mine took 3 aa batteries, and that would be dead in 5-6 weeks! Even if running LiOn batteries they only lasted 2.5 months at most! VERY poor remote! Ive used several and the harmonys are by far my favorites!
 
I've used Harmonys for years, had a couple of 659s, then an 880 (which finally died) and on black friday I managed to pick up a couple of 650s for $40 each and I love them! Only 4 "soft buttons" but extra hard buttons (colors) make up for it and for the price you can't go wrong. Looking on Logitech's site though it looks like they dropped the 650, the 700 being almost identical except for the rechargeable battery and 1 more device but the MSRP is $120! I need to get another couple of 650s and keep them in reserve while I still can.
 
I got the Harmony 300 when I bought my AVR last year. It can control any device that the more expensive Harmony remotes can and I only paid about $20 for it from amazon. The limitations are that it only has physical buttons (no problem for me), it can only control 4 devices, and it only has one programmable activity.

I use it to control my TV, hopper, my Onkyo AVR, and my PS3. The PS3 requires a separate adapter for all harmony remotes because it is controlled by bluetooth instead of IR. I think I paid about $25 for that but I don't remember.

The activity button is called "watch tv" on the harmony 300. I have this configured to turn on my Toshiba TV, turn on and switch inputs to the cbl/sat input on my Onkyo AVR, and turn on my Hopper with 1 button press. The Harmony 300 is a cheap solution for anyone with 3 or less devices.
 
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I personally would steer anyone away from the xsight remotes! One it is so much mor clunky, and non-intuitive than the logitech. I had the model right below the touch. Same remote except it had physical buttons next to the color screen. I hated it. Ended up giving it away. Not sure if the touch was rechargeable, mine took 3 aa batteries, and that would be dead in 5-6 weeks! Even if running LiOn batteries they only lasted 2.5 months at most! VERY poor remote! Ive used several and the harmonys are by far my favorites!
I agree 100% with your assessment of Xsight Color model you had. It is big and clunky and eats batteries (mine lasted only a few days, nowhere near the 5-6 weeks you got). The Touch, on the other hand, is thin and rechargeable, requiring a re-charge about once a month. The One needs charging every few days. I still think Xsight is the better option if you need macros more than 5 steps. It also has multiple favorites lists, which harmony lacks. And it gives you complete control over all the steps in your activity macros. With harmony you must accept what the wizard builds for you.

As king3pj said, the 300 is fine if you have a few devices and only one activity. But the RCA I posted is much more powerful (unlimited activities, 8 devices, etc.) for about half the price. The URC WR7 is another nice cheap remote with good macro capability. And unlike the RCA, it's backlit. If you have your heart set on harmony and want to save some money, the $20 model 200 does one activity and 3 devices, versus the 300's 4 devices.

FWIW, you can get a PS3 IR adapter for $2 at radio shack. But it does lack remote power on/off like the $50 logitech PS3 adapter. And unlike the logitech adapter, it easily works with any remote, including the Dish remote.

Chimera, I agree the 650's are definitely the sweet spot in the harmony line right now in terms of overall value. The new harmony 800 is hitting shelves in Europe right now and should be here soon. It's like a One plus a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. But unlike the One, it's very expensive and crippled by the MyHarmony.com software. I would expect a few new models coming soon if the 650 and others are disappearing. But if history is any guide, any new models will likely be worse than old ones. As you well know, your 659 had lots of devices and sequence capability, whereas newer harmonys have many fewer devices and no sequence capabilities at all, not to mention no way to adjust delays and repeats, import pronto hex, or even rename/reorder activities like the old models could. So newer is generally worse when it comes to harmony.

This thread is about the One, but I have to give Dish a lot of credit for the 40.0 remote. If you don't need macros, it's a great remote, and super easy to set up using Remote Manager. Plus it's the only way to control a Hopper/Joey via RF without first going through IR. The pairing, location, learning, code entry, DVR settings backup/restore and battery status all make the 40.0 (and 32.0) very functional.
 
duhh thanks for mentioning that the 300 controls 4 devices. I originally said 3 even though I have been controlling 4 with it since I bought it. I was leaving off my tv when I was counting them.
 
Just wanted to say that Satellite Guys, and all the folks that post are awesome. I was struggling to set up my One with the Hopper, so I decided to do a search here, and what do you know...you guys had it all figured out for me. Thanks! The "list" button for DVR, and the "#" for search are weird, but they are easy enough to re-label, once you know what they do. Thanks again.
 
mboron said:
Just wanted to say that Satellite Guys, and all the folks that post are awesome. I was struggling to set up my One with the Hopper, so I decided to do a search here, and what do you know...you guys had it all figured out for me. Thanks! The "list" button for DVR, and the "#" for search are weird, but they are easy enough to re-label, once you know what they do. Thanks again.

Thats great to hear. Best tech support for anything you'll ever need.

Sent from my iPad using SatelliteGuys
 
Anyone else have problems where the Discrete On in the Harmony Hopper profile works but the Discrete Off does not? I was able to fix it by learning the Off from my other Harmony which was still set to control my old 722 (and then instead of deleting the 722 from that remote I just learned the Red/Blue/etc from the "Hopper" Harmony :) )

Think I have all 3 Harmony remotes working correctly now,
 
Yes, I did. The Hopper would turn on, but not off. Others talked about it earlier in this thread. My menu wasn't like what they said, but I eventually dug around and found the right spot to set the remote to "power toggle", and now it works fine.
 

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