For a few weeks, the premium
bundle of the Xbox 360 contained a small remote to control the unit. It wasn’t
anything spectacular but it was something for those that were going to use the
Xbox 360 as more than just a gaming console and wanted a remote to control the
multimedia functions rather than using the wireless controller. If you purchase
the premium bundle now, you’ll most likely be missing this little remote, like
I did. To be honest, the remote that came with the bundle wasn’t anything to
write home about but there is one remote especially branded to work with your
Xbox 360 from a company that knows remotes and that’s Logitech. The Harmony
line of remotes is some of the best around and it was only natural that they
develop an Xbox 360 branded remote. With that said, here’s a review of the
Harmony Advanced Universal Remote for Xbox 360.
Right out of the box you can
start using this white remote to control the Xbox 360. As you can see from the
pictures, the remote’s style fits well with the Xbox 360’s design. Unlike a few
of the Harmony remotes we have reviewed, the Harmony Xbox 360 remote is one
long rectangle whereas most Harmony remotes feature many smooth curves.
From top to bottom, the
remote features a plethora of buttons. First off is a single power button on
the top left. This button’s pretty self explanatory as it will turn on and off
devices.
The activities button on
this remote really helps sets this device apart. If you’re like me, you have
plenty of devices that you want to control in your entertainment center. Within
that, there are a few things you do that can be broken down into activities
such as watching a DVD, listening to the radio, or watching TV. You have a
sequence of buttons on one or various remotes to get your whole setup going. In
the past, there were macro buttons where you could program the sequence in
manually. With the Harmony 360 remote, that’s all in the past. Using the
website to setup what devices you have, you will then setup an activity. By
answering a few questions such as what device is used for audio and what input
the TV should be on, the web application sets up all the button presses in
sequence for you. It’s really that easy. I have a Pioneer receiver, Panasonic
LCD HDTV, a Microsoft XP Media Center 2005 PC, and the Xbox 360 as my main
setup. After putting in the devices, setting up a few activities, and
downloading the information via a USB cable to the remote I pointed the Xbox
360 remote to my entertainment center that was all turned off. Pressing the button that had the Watch TV
activity assigned to it, the remote proceeded to turn on the receiver, set it
to TV, set my Media Center to the MyTV menu, turned on my TV, waited about 10
seconds, and then switched the input to component 1. I didn’t have to do much other
than answer a few questions and the remote knew the order and to wait for my TV
to warm up from a cold start to switch the inputs. Now that’s slick
programming.
Another nice thing about
these activities is that the remote knows what state each device is in.
Pressing the Play Xbox 360 activity button, the remote switched my receiver to
DVD, turned on the Xbox 360, and switched the input to component 2. It knew the
TV and receiver was already on so it didn’t send the power signals to the
devices. Activating the Listen to Radio button, the remote proceeded to turn
off my TV, turn off the Xbox 360, and switch my receiver to Radio. The way activities are handled in the Harmony
Xbox 360 remote is one of the strong suites that set this remote apart from all
others.
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