While Logitech has been quiet lately in the Harmony remote department (the Harmony One is now almost a year old), that changes today with the introduction of an upgraded touch screen remote - the Harmony 1100. Similar in many ways to its predecessor, the Harmony 1000, the 1100 trades the older remote's silver metallic finish for a brushed black matte aluminum finish, adds tactile queues for easier "eyes-free" use and offers their first ever customizable screen for those who want to personalize their remote's user interface for their specific needs.
Later today at a press event at the Consumer Electronics Show, Logitech will officially introduce the new remote - with its 3.5-inch full-color touch screen - to press and analysts. The remote netted them a "CES Best of Innovations" award in the Home Theater Accessories category for the second consecutive year.
"The Harmony 1100 is a natural extension of the Harmony promise – to simplify today's complex home-entertainment systems," said Ashish Arora, vice president and general manager of Logitech's Harmony business unit. "As more and more people get the bulk of their entertainment at home, the Harmony 1100 will help people get more out of their home-entertainment experience -- for a fraction of the price of traditional custom-installed remotes."
With redesigned software, the 3.5-inch touch-sensitive screen – which features QVGA resolution – gives you a bright and colorful launchpad and control center for your home theater system, whether that's comprised of three components or thirteen. Using the enhanced Harmony Wizard software and Logitech's online database of thousands of CE components, you can select the commands you use most within a specific activity and put those controls right on the main screen that loads for a specific activity. For example, if you really want a "DVR" button front and center in the middle of your touch screen when you start the "Watch HDTV" activity, then that's where it will be.
The model 1100 also features integrated RF (Radio Frequency) capability so you can control devices through closed doors or from odd angles where standard IR (Infrared) control is not feasible or even from another room, up to 100 feet away. To exploit this feature you'll also need to purchase one of their optional RF extenders.
As with previous Harmony remotes, all programming is done via a simple Web-based Wizard interface that asks you plain English questions about your system components, and how they are connected to each other so that you can create simple "activities" which concurrently operate multiple devices. For example, if you like to watch Blu-ray Discs through a home theater system, the "Watch Blu-ray" activity could be easily set up to power up your player, power up your TV and select the HDMI input, power up your receiver and select the "HDMI" input and leave you with a touch screen layout that combines the essential controls of the Blu-ray player (play/pause/rewind), the receiver (volume up/down, surround mode) and the TV (aspect ratio) - all on one color touch screen.
The Harmony 1100 is expected to be available in the U.S. and Europe beginning in February for a suggested retail price of $499.99 (U.S.).
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