Actually, having previously owned a Home Theatre Master MX-700 a few years back, the major difference with the Harmony series isn't the question of discrete codes, but rather their ability to keep track of the state of the devices. The beauty of this approach is that even devices that do not have discrete codes available can still be programmed to work.
Specifically, the Harmony remote remembers the state of each device as best as it can (based on the codes that it's previously sent). This way, when the Harmony has already previously turned a device ON, it remembers this, and doesn't bother sending another power command to that device. This works regardless of whether discrete codes are supported or not (as even with discrete codes, since IR commands are sent consecutively, there's no point in wasting time sending an "ON" signal to a device that's already on).
While many home theatre enthusiasts avoid devices without discrete commands like the plague, this isn't always avoidable... Many content providers (cable and satellite providers) don't exactly offer you a choice of the receiver that you're going to use, and some of these are notorious for not having any discrete codes available. This was one area in which the MX-700 drove me nuts, but that the Harmony remotes have nicely solved for me.
Further, the Harmony series remotes have a much higher WAF (wife acceptance factor) than the MX-700 ever did, even after days of meticulous programming and coding. The "Help" button alone has saved my wife from making many frustrated "the TV isn't working!" phone calls to me.
Mind you, while the Harmony 1000 looks very interesting, it still makes me nervous with regards to a lack of tactile feedback... As somebody who watches a lot of PVRed and Apple TV type content, the lack of play/pause and skip forward/back navigation buttons would likely become a big annoyance pretty quickly. I'm also still shaking my head a bit that they don't include an RF extender for that price, when the Harmony 890 does for $100 less.
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Actually, having previously owned a Home Theatre Master MX-700 a few years back, the major difference with the Harmony series isn't the question of discrete codes, but rather their ability to keep track of the state of the devices. The beauty of this approach is that even devices that do not have discrete codes available can still be programmed to work.
Specifically, the Harmony remote remembers the state of each device as best as it can (based on the codes that it's previously sent). This way, when the Harmony has already previously turned a device ON, it remembers this, and doesn't bother sending another power command to that device. This works regardless of whether discrete codes are supported or not (as even with discrete codes, since IR commands are sent consecutively, there's no point in wasting time sending an "ON" signal to a device that's already on).
While many home theatre enthusiasts avoid devices without discrete commands like the plague, this isn't always avoidable... Many content providers (cable and satellite providers) don't exactly offer you a choice of the receiver that you're going to use, and some of these are notorious for not having any discrete codes available. This was one area in which the MX-700 drove me nuts, but that the Harmony remotes have nicely solved for me.
Further, the Harmony series remotes have a much higher WAF (wife acceptance factor) than the MX-700 ever did, even after days of meticulous programming and coding. The "Help" button alone has saved my wife from making many frustrated "the TV isn't working!" phone calls to me.
Mind you, while the Harmony 1000 looks very interesting, it still makes me nervous with regards to a lack of tactile feedback... As somebody who watches a lot of PVRed and Apple TV type content, the lack of play/pause and skip forward/back navigation buttons would likely become a big annoyance pretty quickly. I'm also still shaking my head a bit that they don't include an RF extender for that price, when the Harmony 890 does for $100 less.