Picking a universal remote control is pretty tricky these days. There are plenty of simple, programmable IR blasters out there, but some of the best remotes can control other devices using Bluetooth or even Wi-FI. This week, we’re looking at some of the best universal remotes, based on your nominations.
Earlier in the week, we asked you to tell us which universal remotes you thought were the best. Your nominations ranged from the hilarious to the incredibly useful, and even though it’s been a long time since we looked at the category, many remotes still stand on either side of a huge dividing line: one the one side, there are programmable IR blasters that are cheap and effective for most home entertainment setups. On the other are complex and often more expensive devices that can control all of your IR devices, but also any smart home gear you have and other technologies around the house. Some even let you use your smartphone or tablet as well.
That aside, let’s look at your top five picks from the nominations round:
Logitech Harmony One/Harmony Ultimate One
The Logitech Harmony One, much loved and lauded, but eventually replaced by the Harmony Ultimate One, is a tough universal remote to top. More than a few of you highlighted how much you loved the original Harmony One, its completely programmable buttons and activities, plethora of settings, and durability. Even though it’s discontinued, you can still pick one up—albeit at the hefty price of $349 at Amazon, while its replacement, the Harmony Ultimate One, is a more affordable $209. For its part, the Ultimate One tries to capture some of what people loved about the One, including the adaptable touchscreen, programmable activities, and ability to control all of the devices in your home entertainment center. Both remotes are IR blasters only, meaning RF devices and Bluetooth devices are out, but also trims down the number of buttons on the face of the remote, instead relying a bit more on the touchscreen for a lot of operations and for custom, user-added buttons. The Ultimate One also slimmed the whole thing down to a slightly smaller size. Some people love those changes, others hated them, but at the end of the day you have options.
Those of you who nominated the Harmony One and Ultimate One all praised the device for being able to control virtually everything in your setups, with little real configuration. Everyone (and you’ll see this is a recurring theme with the other Harmony nominees) complained a bit about Logitech’s overly-heavy and complicated desktop programming software, but it’s better than pointing the remote at another remote to learn commands (although the original One was capable of this as well.) Many of you loved the ability to switch between activities and devices to perform specific actions on your devices even if they’re not part of “activities” you program, and many of you loved your original Ones so much that you said you don’t know what you’ll do when it eventually dies. You can read more in this nomination thread, this one, or this one.
Touchsquid
Touchsquid isn’t so much a remote control as it’s a remote control app that turns your Android smartphone or tablet into a universal remote thanks to its pre-programmed database of over 700,000 devices. Of course, your device needs to either have an IR blaster of its own for the app to work (and there’s a list of supported phones and tablets here) or it has to be paired up with an external IR blaster that will send the app’s signals to your home entertainment gear. If you’re looking for a quick way to turn your Android phone—especially if you have a device like an HTC One or a Galaxy S5, both of which have IR built-in, into a universal remote (or you’ve upgraded from those phones and want to find a use for them), this is it. Touchsquid’s software comes in two different flavors, the $14 Home version that lets you control up to 6 devices per “room profile,” and the $40 Pro version, which bumps the device limit up to 14 per “room profile,” adds user-programmable macro buttons, nested buttons, and cross-device syncing to the pot. Best of all, if you’re not sure it’ll work for you, you can download a free trial from Google Play. In every case though, you just tell Touchsquid what devices you have in your home theater, which ones you use for what, program your activities (much in a similar fashion to Harmony devices), and you’re off and away.
Those of you who nominated Touchsquid pointed out that it loads quickly and it’s fairly snappy for the features that it offers, and that it’s pretty straightforward to program and operate. You noted that it works well with external IR blasters you can connect to via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, and that also gives you the freedom to turn any Android device in the house into a universal remote control, and you don’t need line of sight to manage any of your devices. Of course, using your Android device’s touchscreen to control your entertainment center comes with downsides—namely that you don’t have hard buttons or tactile feedback, but if you don’t mind that, it’s worth checking out. You can read its nomination thread here.
Logitech Harmony Ultimate Home/Harmony Smart Control
Logitech’s Harmony Home and Harmony Smart Control are certainly different, but we’re putting them together in this category because of the one critical feature they have in common: The Home Hub. On its own, this $93 device lets you use your smartphone or tablet as a remote control for not just your home entertainment devices, but other smart home or connected devices around your house. That means thermostats, lighting systems, security systems, and more. It’s all programmable and customizable, and you can manage it all from your phone, tablet, or both. Of course, whether you’re geared more towards controlling entertainment devices or smart home devices will determine whether you want the Harmony Ultimate Home ($287 at Amazon) or the Harmony Smart Control ($100 at Amazon). The Ultimate Home (and the step-down Harmony Home Control) are designed to control everything in your home—not just your multimedia gear, but anything that can be controlled over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, RF, or IR. The Harmony Smart Control on the other hand is designed more for closed-cabinet control of all of your entertainment electronics, still works with your smartphone or tablet, and is designed firmly for living room use. It can even be expanded by purchasing extra controls for other rooms in the house, all connected to the same Home Hub. It’s a little confusing (okay, very confusing) but once you spend time comparing the devices at Logitech’s site, you’ll be able to choose which option has the features you’ll need. The big thing here is that all of these revolve around the Home Hub to control multiple devices with your smartphone or tablet OR an included Harmony remote, all capable of managing all sorts of devices in your home, whether they’re traditionally receptive to a remote control or not.
Those of you who nominated the Harmony Ultimate Home, Smart Control, and Smart Home all praised each iteration for giving you just the features you need without forcing you to overspend on a package you didn’t want. For example, the Smart Home might be a great option over the Ultimate Home for those folks not interested in the touch screen on the Ultimate or the extra features, but for those folks just looking for a simpler remote, the Smart Control might be better off. Logitech themselves popped in to nominate the Harmony Ultimate Home, but a few of you had praise for the more modest Smart Control in nomination threads like this, saying it controls all the devices you need it to control without any extra (or pricier) bells and whistles. Some of you even praised the white version of the Smart Home in nomination threads like this one, noting that you liked the color, but also that you could use it to control lots of devices in your home—not just your TV and entertainment gear, and none of it needed line of sight to work. Almost all of you said that once you moved up to these systems and got used to them, you couldn’t see yourself needing another remote system again.
RCA Universal Remote
We have to give some love to the simple RCA Universal Remote, which has come in several shapes and sizes over the years. Most of the nominations though were for this four-device model for $9 at Amazon or its smaller 3-device version for $6. In each case, these remotes are much simpler, and harken back to a simpler day of universal remote programming—meaning you’ll need to give it control codes if it doesn’t automatically know the type of device you’re trying to manage—and even then, getting it to work may be hit or miss. That said, if your devices all use common codes, it’s a simple device that can replace your other remote controls for essentially a few bucks out of your pocket. There are RCA universal remote variants available too, some of which are built to replace your cable remote as well as your TV remote, and some are backlit to be easy to find in the dark, but all of them have one thing in common: they’re dirt cheap and get the job done.
Those of you who nominated these pointed specifically to their price point, too—you said that some of you don’t need all the bells and whistles of smart home controls and other widgets and accessories, and you don’t have a massive home entertainment setup that warrants an expensive universal remote. You might have a TV remote, a cable remote, and maybe one other you’d like to replace, and this does the job nicely, is cheap, and you won’t feel bad if you lose or break it. A few of you lamented the fact that these remotes can be tricky to program, don’t work with your specific devices (and when that happens, there’s nothing you can really do), and aren’t as advanced or robust as others, but for others of you, that’s the whole point. You can read more in its nomination thread here.
Logitech Harmony 650
The Logitech Harmony 650 (and, to be fair, if I added them up, the Harmony 350 and the also-discontinued higher end Harmony 700 or Harmony 880,) were also popular in the nominations round, largely because they represented a somewhat simpler time in universal remote setup and use. These remotes are a bit more durable, have more controls and buttons on the remotes themselves and smaller touchscreens, and while they support fewer devices, they’re also not incredibly expensive. The Harmony 650 is $65 at Amazon, for example, can control eight devices, has a color screen for programmable activities or favorite channels, has one-touch activity buttons, and walks the line between just the options you need and a wallet-friendly price.
This was a recurring theme in the 650’s massive nomination thread. You shared your experiences both with these remotes failing on you and being replaced by Logitech, but many of you pointing out that the 650 does exactly what you needed it to do without costing you a ton of money and requiring you spend a lot of time setting up extra devices, installing apps, or trying to get used to using multiple devices to control your gear. Many of you lamented it being part of an older generation of universal remotes, that it requires line of sight to work, and so on, but others said you didn’t want to spend hundreds just to control everything with one device. You can check out its nomination thread here, peek into the nomination thread for the 350 ($40 at Amazon,) or the Harmony 700 ($145 at Amazon) and Harmony 880 ($290 at Amazon)—both of which are discontinued (which is why they’re not in the top five proper) but still available at Amazon in both refurb and new versions.
Now that you’ve seen the top five, it’s time to put them to a vote and determine the Lifehacker community favorite:
Honorable Mentions
This week’s honorable mentions goes out to the Sony PS3 Media Remote Control, which many of you said you purchased to use with your PS3, but actually use to control your whole home entertainment center. It’s easily programmed, has all the buttons and commands you need, and works pretty well without needing other remotes to step in all the time. Obviously it’s ideal for people with a PS3, as opposed to folks who may not already have one, but it’s definitely a nice universal remote nevertheless.
In more hilarious nominees, we have to call out the Doctor Who 11th Doctor Sonic Screwdriver Universal Remote, or if you’re more of a fan of the 10th, the 10th Doctor Sonic Screwdriver Universal Remote. Funny and jokey nominations aside, these actually got a surprising amount of support in the nominations thread. Here’s to you, whovians.
Speaking of fan nominations, we’ll tip our hats to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Phaser Universal Remote. Because it just wouldn’t be fair otherwise, and who doesn’t like the idea of firing a phaser at their TV to be rid of some annoying program they’d rather not be watching?
Have something to say about one of the contenders? Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn’t included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Don’t just complain about the top five, let us know what your preferred alternative is—and make your case for it—in the discussions below.
The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it didn’t get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it’s a bit of a popularity contest. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at [email protected]!
Title photo by Phil Long.