Powerful Online Database
One reason the setup is so easy is that Logitech has a comprehensive online database that features information about tens of thousands of components and the infrared signals required to control them. When users enter a component model number during setup, the Harmony wizard matches it with infrared codes about that device already stored in the database. Those codes are later downloaded into the remote.
The database is unique in that Harmony remote users actually provide most of the information that exists in the database. During a Harmony remote user’s setup, the database occasionally does not include information about a particular electronics component. The wizard walks the user through a process that teaches the Harmony remote about the component. This involves pointing the component’s original remote control toward the sensor in the back of the Harmony remote, and pushing a short sequence of buttons. The Harmony remote captures those commands, and then uploads them to the user’s online account where they are stored and can be accessed or updated at any time. This new component information is validated by the Harmony customer support team to make sure it is accurate, and is then uploaded into the community database. The next time a Harmony customer enters that component model number, the device will be found in the database.
This community approach ensures that the database has the most current information on tens of thousands of brands and models of consumer electronics components, new and old, popular and obscure. It is never out of date.
The Logitech Harmony 880 Remote Reviewer’s Guide
Summer 2005
Page 6
