Like most people I have a whole gaggle of remote controls cluttering up my living room. I've got TV, Pace Twin (Freeview PVR), DVD, VCR and AV amplifier. There are a few options for replacing them all. Several years ago I bought a One For All 6. This is a very capable device that met my needs of the time. It could control my NTL cable TV. It could learn things like my obscure DVD's commands and with the aid of a home made cable and a little software could be programmed from a PC. Unfortunately it would not control the Twin without being sent away for an upgrade. I was also having problems with some buttons on the Twin remote, so I decided to go for something new.

I read about the Harmony on AV Forums and it sounded good. It came with a USB cable to allow programming from the PC and seemed to support all the devices I had. The price was a bit high at £70. I think this model is being replaced and I heard that Dixons had some for the bargain price of £30, but I didn't get one of those. Instead I resorted to ebay. I had never bought or sold there before, but there seemed to be a few of these remotes at reasonable prices so I placed a few bids and eventually won one for just over £40 delivered.

The remote is useless until you have set it up from the PC. The software consists of a utility that does the communication and has to be installed. Then you configure everything via the web site. This uses some Java (I think) downloads to perform various actions. This all works fairly well, but I have had some issues when trying to teach the remote extra commands. For now Linux is not supported, but I hope this will change.

As well as setting up each device you can also configure combined actions like Watch DVD. This can be set up to turn on the required devices, select appropriate inputs and then configure the buttons you need. So you can control the DVD, but have the volume buttons control the amplifier. If the buttons are too limited you can assign functions to the buttons by the LCD screen with appropriate labels. There is also a help button that will help you ensure everything is turned on and on the right channel.

I think you can have up to 15 devices which should be enough for anyone. There are other models in the range that offer extra functions and better displays for more money, but this one will do for me.

This is not aimed at technophobes. You have to spend a lot of time on the computer setting it up as you need to. I'm still tweaking.

The available commands for the Twin were lacking some of those which were not working on my remote. I mailed the helpdesk and they have retrieved those from the settings of other people and added them to my options. That only took a couple of days to resolve.

Overall I'm pretty happy so far. I just have to teach the family how to use it, but I do not forsee major issues there.

You can see the remote at Amazon, but if you purchase there please do so via PFGM to benefit our school.