Logitech Harmony Hub Review - Review 2022

Editors' Note: This review has been updated to reverberate changes in the Harmony Home Hub, now the Harmony Hub, since it launched in 2022. Nosotros've raised its score from three.v to 4 stars for its added functionality.

Logitech'south Harmony line of universal remotes has seen major upgrades over the years, and ever since 2022 have been able to control your smart home devices in improver to your habitation theater. The $99.99 Logitech Harmony Hub comes with the Editors' Option Harmony Elite remote ($319.99 at Amazon) , just you can as well choice one up past itself for less than a 3rd of the toll of the Elite bundle, and apply a smartphone or tablet to command your connected devices. The Harmony Hub itself isn't a full-on home automation hub without buying an boosted extender, but it works with nigh every hub on the market to make configuring and controlling your different devices simpler and easier—peculiarly domicile theater products.

Design and Compatibility

The Harmony Hub ($69.08 at Amazon) is a small black box that measures four.nine by 4.1 past 1.0 inches (HWD). It uses Bluetooth, infrared (IR), and Wi-Fi to communicate with your various devices. Logitech includes an IR blaster cable, which you lot tin can run to nearby components in club to command them even if they're behind a cabinet.

However your home theater is fix, the Harmony Hub can probably command it. The compatibility list for abode entertainment devices hit over 270,000 across 6,000 different brands when we first reviewed it in 2022, and Logitech has been steadily updating that list always since. Information technology's a staggering array of TVs, set-acme boxes, media streamers, and Blu-ray players. You lot tin can fifty-fifty use Bluetooth or IR to connect with wireless game consoles like the Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 ($499.00 at Amazon) , which y'all won't discover on many other hubs.

Home automation makes the Harmony Hub even more impressive. Information technology tin piece of work with many different smart home and automation systems out of the box including Ecobee, Lutron, LIFX, Nest, Philips Hue, and Samsung SmartThings. Information technology also supports If This Then That (IFTTT) recipes for more custom automation, and you can add Logitech'south POP switches to the mix. You tin can even connect the Hub to an Amazon Alexa voice assistant device similar the Amazon Echo , letting you command your different devices with voice commands.

While it costs as much as the Harmony Hub itself, the $99.99 Harmony Home Hub Extender adds Z-Wave and Zigbee compatibility, widely expanding what you can control with the Hub. That includes GE Link and OSRAM Lightify smart bulbs, Kwikset and Yale smart locks, Enerwave and Nortech switches, and Jasco and Leviton Plugs. The $200 combined toll for the Hub and Extender is more daunting than the Hub on its own, but if y'all have a lot of different habitation automation devices it could be a very worthwhile investment.

Besides worth noting: You can also pick up the Logitech Harmony Companion, a $149.99 bundle consisting of the Harmony Hub and a much simpler, not-touch-screen remote.

Setup

The Harmony Hub works Android and iOS devices. Setup is elementary, though there's a bit of a learning curve every bit you first go acquainted with the Harmony app. Later plugging in the Hub, you must download the Harmony app to your device. Setup takes place through the app, which guides you through the process. You tin can likewise use Logitech'south Harmony Web portal, which can brand calculation new devices a bit more convenient.

After connecting the Hub to our Wi-Fi network, it automatically recognized compatible devices connected to the network, including a Samsung TV, an Apple TV, a Roku Streaming Stick, Sonos Play:1 speakers, and Philips Hue lights. Everything else tin can be added manually by plugging in the brand and model number of the device you lot wish to connect; there'south as well an option to add devices that aren't in Logitech'due south database. Y'all can connect up to 15 devices in full.

App and Performance

In addition to all of the usual suspects in a dwelling house theater setup (TV, cable box, and so on), we used the Harmony Ultimate Home to connect to and command a Lutron Caseta Wireless Plug-In Lamp Dimmer ($64.95 at Amazon) , as well every bit the aforementioned Philips Hue lights and Sonos speakers.

Logitech makes information technology easy to gear up upwards its Harmony signature Activities, in which yous can program connected products to work together automatically with the push of a unmarried button (like to IFTTT recipes, which the Hub as well supports). For instance, nosotros set upwards an activeness called Scout Tv, which turns on the television receiver and cablevision box at the same fourth dimension. Information technology's admittedly elementary, merely easier than the usual process of turning the Television on with one remote and the cable box with another. Watch a Movie is a flake more advanced; it turns the television and Blu-ray player on, and all of the Hue lights off.

Activities simplifies smart light controls, helping make upwardly for the overwhelming options when you individually select bulbs. By setting upwardly groups of lights into specific colors and brightness levels as their own Activities, y'all tin easily set scenes that you tin can access with a tap (similar Scenes configured through the Philips Hue app), toggle using a Pop Switch, or integrate with a specific part like watching a movie.

Where the Harmony Hub really shines, though, is in control of your dwelling theater setup. It lets you lot jump direct to your preferred channels with up to l customizable favorites. And it's just as like shooting fish in a barrel to perform elementary tasks like adjusting the volume and changing channels using the app as it is with a standard remote. And thank you to integration with Amazon'due south Alexa, y'all tin can even exercise so via voice control. It feels great being able to tuck all those bulky remotes out of sight.

Conclusions

If you're looking for a way to command all of your home entertainment devices from ane place, and don't care about a physical remote, the Logitech Harmony Hub is an excellent pick. Information technology turns your telephone or tablet into a universal remote and a middleman for your smart home devices, fifty-fifty if it isn't technically a domicile automation hub itself. Information technology tin can control near anything y'all throw at it, but yous'll accept to spend another $100 on the Extender if you utilise Zigbee or Z-Wave devices.

All-time Home Automation Hub Picks

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Further Reading

• What Is a Smart Dwelling Hub (And Practice Yous Demand 1)?
• Google Assistant Is Closing the Skills Gap, But Alexa Still Dominates
• Privacy Tops List of Consumer Smart Home Concerns
• Alexa Loses Her Vox in Widespread Outage
• McAfee Brings Voice-Activated Security to Amazon Alexa

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/home-automation-hubs/248/logitech-harmony-hub-review

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