Darrell suggested Logitech planned on supporting remotes as long as people were using them, but the future of its remotes business was uncertain. Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell told The Verge that Harmony sales comprised “around six percent” of the sales for Logitech’s keyboard business. In Q4 2017, Logitech said that Home Control sales grew 10 percent in comparison to the 45 percent of Q4 2016, a “resurgence” it attributed to the “continued integration of voice assistants (such as Alexa and Google Assistant) into our Harmony Hub.” Logitech even sold a Harmony remote with built-in Alexa called the Harmony Express, a saving throw that reeked of desperation in retrospect, even if the remote seemed nice.īy 2019, the writing was on the wall. The popularity of voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant may have been the first visible signs that interest in universal remotes was shrinking if you read through the lines of Logitech’s quarterly earnings press releases. Put on a much larger stage (translation: selling remotes in more places than Canada), demand for Harmony remotes exploded in the following years. The remote's internal memory would allow you to save multiple of those routines for just about anything you wanted to do with your home entertainment system.Įasy Zapper would eventually rebrand as Intrigue Technologies before being gobbled up for $29 million by Logtiech in 2004. With a press of a button, a Harmony remote can determine the state of your appliances (if you’re playing a DVD that could be your TV, DVD player, and speakers, for example) and issue the right command over IR to get everything set up to watch. The original Harmony remote could always be up to date thanks to its ability to download TV and CD listings from the internet (over a wired USB connection) and had what would end up being the most important skill for universal remotes, Smart State Technology (SST). According to their first press release about the remote, it could control everything in your entertainment system because of “its connectivity to the World Wide Web.” created the first Harmony remote with pretty big intentions. You can find Logitech, and the Harmony remote brand it acquired in 2004, at the heart of many a personal universal remote story. Amanda Edwards/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Logitech’s Harmony remotes changed how people interacted with their living rooms. In Lauren’s words, “I know it’s nerdy, but I set all this stuff up to not have to be a nerd, you know?” Logitech Enters, And Exits A Broadlink IR blaster was brought in to connect some dots that could easily be connected on their own (infrared light has its limitations) and a separate tablet is used to play shows from dedicated UK-based streaming apps, but overall, the living room experience works - as long as you have her remote. Lauren’s system isn’t perfect, of course.

Yes, she could use a separate remote or controller to manage her TV, and the receiver, Xbox, and more hiding in a living room closet, but why do that when you can get basically everything going with one Logitech Harmony 665 Advance Remote Control? Her setup has evolved since to accommodate the variety of old and new tech she’s accrued over the years, but building it out has proven to be a welcome side project. Lauren’s home theater setup started as a way to incorporate a speaker system she inherited from her father, one that might not offer multiroom audio like Sonos, but is a lot simpler to use. One reason why? “The Sonos app just makes me feel like a boomer,” Lauren Petto tells Inverse over Zoom. Companies are still making universal remotes, and the faithful are miraculously still buying them. The universal remote, with its programmable buttons and routines, was the savior of complicated setups, but one that, thanks to streaming boxes, the rise of streaming services, and the mass adoption of smart TVs, doesn’t really have much of a place in most homes in 2023.īut hangers-on exist even if remotes have been replaced with casting protocols and pack-in flingers with paid product placement buttons.

TVs used to ship with more than one physical switch or button, you frequently needed a receiver if you wanted to use multiple home theater appliances at once, and juggling all of the various components of your living room usually fell to a remote. The living room was a very different place before apps.

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