Living (Room) in Harmony

A few years ago, I remember asking to get a Logitech Harmony remote to keep things in my living room a little more tidy, and ended up with the Logitech Harmony 900.  It was a pretty cool device for it's time, with it's little touch screen and programmable buttons and all.  With a press of a button, I could have my TV, receiver, and set top box all start up at once.  I even tried to expand on its capabilities by purchasing the PS3 Bluetooth adapter so it could also boot that up with another command.  Now that those few years have past, the remote itself is still in a decent working order, though it can act up from time to time, like not quite responding to key inputs right away.  I still wanted to keep things nice and tidy, but didn't want to drop so much coin for another Harmony remote (because the really nice ones are a few hundred dollars).

I think within the last year or so, when IoT (Internet of Things) was really making headway into the consumer market, Harmony did the "smart" decision (pun intended) to create the Harmony Hub.  Not only is this a device for your entertainment unit, but it could also integrate into your IoT devices too.  How it integrated wth IoT wasn't really much of my concern.  I was happy to find out that I could just purchase the hub on its own (without any versions of the other Harmony remotes packaged with it), and it came in at a reasonable price.  Even better, all you need is an Android or iOS device, and download the companion app, and essentially just turn your phone/tablet/etc into a universal remote too.

I've had the Hub for a few months now, and it's been pretty cool so far.  I think one of the things that made me decide on purchasing it was the fact it also included Bluetooth.  Considering the PS3 adapter for my previous remote hasn't worked in awhile, I was able to get rid of that and just soley rely on the Hub to also control the PS3 instead.  Perhaps even cooler is the fact that there's Google Assistant compatibility.  Seeing as I've also got a Google Home Mini, I feel like I've given real purpose for it by pairing the speaker with Harmony.  Creating shortcuts with the Google Home app has allowed me to give shortened voice commands to, say, turn my TV on or off.

The only downsides that I've seen, or that I can think of at the moment, are as follows:

1. Would be nice if there was a litte more flexibility in arranging the pages for each function in the remote app.  Not so much arranging the buttons on each page, but rather arranging the order of the pages.
2. Should there be any issues with your local network, then you've basically rendered the Hub useless in controlling your entertainment system (which I should have considered prior to purchase).  My old Harmony 900 isn't compatible with the Hub.  Otherwise, I'm falling back on the individual remotes in a worse case scenario
3. It actually would have been interesting to have an app to control the devices through your PC as well.

With that being said, I think purchasing the Harmony Hub on its own would benefit a user with an existing Harmony remote that's compatible with it, and is looking into making their home connected thru IoT devices.  However, if you're only interested in controlling your home entertainment area, and willing to chip in a few extra bones, then grabbing the Hub with the basic companion remote may do you well.  Otherwise, you can always just take the risk like me and just stick with the Hub on its own.