Although I do have a fondness for dedicated universal remote controls, with my favorite being the Harmony line from Logitech, I can see the appeal of turning your smart phone, tablet or touch-screen media player into a universal remote control. But how can you make a WiFi-based device like an iPod Touch or an iPad into an Infrared (IR) remote, capable of controlling all of the various consumer electronics devices in your living room or home theater? Logitech now has the solution.
Logitech's Harmony Link solution, announced today, combines a free control app, based on Logitech's Harmony platform, with an IR (infrared) blaster: the Harmony Link. The app and the Harmony Linkr communicate through your home's wireless network. This allows you to kick off complex activities via a simple button push from your iPhone or iPad and the app and blaster magically translate these actions into the IR control codes that operate your electronic equipment. Don't have an iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone? No problem. There is also an option for Android smartphones (though it lacks the visual program guide features).
Although the IR blaster is fairly small (about the size of a hockey puck), this is not really a portable solution: the Link is too large to attach to the device itself and does require its own power source. The Link is meant to sit discretely in your living room or in an equipment closet where it can blast out the IR commands to your equipment via line of sight. Multiple IR blasters can be used and controlled from a single control device or from multiple devices. The app finds any Link units on your home network and allows you to access each one independently. Harmony Link can control up to eight devices with the Link blaster. And IR mini-blaster accessory is included, which allows you to control equipment inside or outside of a closed cabinet. Also, since WiFi works through walls, you can even control a system in another room or a completely different part of the home.
The Harmony Link and App also allow you to view a personalized schedule of your favorite TV shows via an interactive visual guide customized to your specific area and TV provider. Powered by the Rovi service, the guide is chock full of program data and custom graphics. So now you can see what's on right from your tablet or phone, browsing by show title, channel or genre. Once you find something worth watching, one push of the program listing will turn on all the right devices and tune to the right channel.
The Link and app also provide the existing Harmony activity-based functionality that made the dedicated remote controls so successful. You just enter your model numbers into a web-based Wizard, answer some questions about how you use each device (e.g., cable box to change TV channels, receiver to adjust volume, Blu-ray player to watch and control movies) and the software automatically sets up your app with common activities such as "listen to radio" or "watch a Blu-ray" or "browse Netflix queue."
The Logitech Harmony Link is expected to be available in the U.S. in October for a suggested retail price of $99.99. The Harmony Link App for iOS tablets and smartphones and the Harmony Link App for Android smartphones are expected to be available as free downloads in October from the iTunes App Store and Android Market, respectively.
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