Logitech Touch Remote

Today’s technology is getting more and more complicated. Take your living room for example. You have a TV, a gaming console or two, a set top box, a cable box, a DVR, an A/V receiver, and perhaps a Bluray player. The thing is, each of those components has its own remote control, making it a game of “Find the Right Remote” every time you want to fire up a movie.

To solve this dilemma, the wizards at Logitech have made their line of universal remotes. Logitech has actually been making universal remotes for years now and are renown for their line of Harmony remotes. There are several models ranging from $39 to $399. Their mid and higher range Harmony remotes all feature small LCD screens on the face of the remote that changes functionality of the its surrounding buttons. These universal remotes are super powerful as you can program any IR remote into them. You can also program the remotes to run a “macro,” or a series of commands at the push of a button. For example, if you want to play a movie, you can program a button to turn on the TV, Bluray player, and A/V receiver on all at the same time to the right settings. Their flag ship, the Harmony 1100 features a 3.5″ full touch screen to control just about everything around your home.These are just a few reasons why the Logitech Harmony line of remotes is held in such high regard.

If you have a media center PC hooked up to your television, it may be difficult to control it using a remote but don’t worry, Logitech has you covered. Instead of using an IR remote or even a physical keyboard/track pad combination, you can actually use your iOS device such as an iPhone or iPod Touch to control your media center computer. Logitech released their Logitech touch remote app called Touch Mouse for free. You need to install server software on your Windows or OS X box and can use your iOS device to control your computer. The program features a trackpad with three buttons(left, middle, right) and also brings up the virtual keyboard for entering text.