So I had a bunch of reward miles piling up and when I got an email listing the Harmony 1000 as one of the featured items, I jumped at it.
I've had the Harmony 1000 for a few days and had the basic programming done in about an hour. Works as advertised. Programming is easy. GF acceptance factor: phenominal.
I thought that the activities based thing was gimicky but it really works well. Changing activities, i.e. watching a DVD to listening to CD's turns on/off the appropriate components and sets everyting up just right (i.e. for CD's even added the recever going into 2 channel bypass mode which is nice).
There is only one thing that I could not get working right (yet) is my MackBook remote. Would think the Apple remote is pretty simple but it sends the signal twice and I'm not sure why. (I use this for sreaming Apple Losless tunes to my system)
For the GF, who can't aim a remote if her life depeneded on it, the Help feature is nice. Just hit Help and it walks you through a bunch of questions, answer yes or no and it takes the appropriate corrective actions. She tends to somehow miss the HDPVR when turning on the TV. The remote (not me) can now rectify the problem.. she loves it!
Give that, there are some quirks in programming the display buttons. There are some that you cannot change nor not have them show up in the remote. Already have an email out to Logitec. These are just annoyances but in a remote of this calibre, I would expect that everyting is customizable. Hopefully Logitech will correct in future software updates.
Overall quite nice and it has already replaced my Sony 4000 (which is also PC programmable).
Would I spend real money on this.. $600 Canadian or about $350 US on the net. The US price, probably, the Canadian price, no way. I was pretty happy with the Sony but the Harmony 1000 is really the next level. Nice show piece too and it looks impressive in its dock next to my system.