Logitech is branching out its line of home theater remote controls into the smart home at large. The peripherals giant has announced new versions of its top-tier remotes under the “Harmony Living Home” line. The move sees the company move from being able to control Philips Hue light bulbs, August smart locks and the Nest thermostat (with its old remotes), to being targeted at all the connected devices in the home.
The remote comes in two flavors, and neither is particularly cheap. The Harmony Ultimate Home costs $349, and comes with a 2.4 inch touchscreen. The $150 Harmony Smart Control lacks the touchscreen and relies solely on buttons. Both versions require the Harmony Home Hub, which comes bundled with the remotes – but it is possible to buy only the hub for $100 and use the iOS or Android smartphone app as the interface. The hub adds WiFi, Bluetooth and RF communication to the infra-red remotes.
The remote and app allow users to program Activities, to coordinate functions for connected devices. It’s a feature common to all smart home platforms, but trying to program devices on the model without a screen could prove tricky. The mobile app might prove the easier option there, and that app lets users trigger activities when away from home – although there’s no word yet on whether the system will support voice control, which is potentially a major deal breaker given Apple and Google’s dominance in that field and their pending smart home maneuvers.
Logitech plans on adding another hub to the family to bring ZigBee and Z-Wave connectivity to the table, which Logitech says will be Thread compatible – bringing the upcoming Google smart home ecosystem into the fold. That extender will appear in December and will cost $129. As you can see, this is not a particularly cheap option, especially once you begin to factor in the cost of purchasing enough smart home devices to justify needing the all-in-one remote system.
But the Harmony family has earned itself a good reputation in the A/V and home theater market, thanks in part to its database of 270,000 devices and the necessary mechanisms needed to control them. Now Logitech is taking that approach into the smart home with its Harmony Developers Program, but we think its pricing approach is backwards.
Currently, the high-end Harmony Ultimate Home is being marketed as the must-have component – a truly comprehensive device. On its webpage, the $349 remote takes top billing, but we think the Home Hub is the most exciting device here.
Given that any DIY smart home buyer is almost certainly going to already own a smartphone, the Home Hub is a lot cheaper than some hubs on the market, and a little dearer than quite a few. But once you add the remote control, which you’d pick up in the $150 package, suddenly the bundle doesn’t seem unreasonable. The $349 seems overpriced, given that you are effectively paying $200 for a small touchscreen, so we don’t see it selling like hot cakes.
One downside to the system is found in its requirement to have an always-on internet connection for the hub, even for devices that can be controlled on the local network only in a normal set up. This is down to Logitech using cloud-based intelligence to configure and command the network, and this might prove infuriating on the occasion that your broadband line suffers an outage and you are unable to control your blinds.
But the biggest downside is the price. There are going to be two ways that consumers will most likely enter the smart home; through a paid subscription service added to an existing TV or internet package, or as a DIY project. For the former, it is highly unlikely that Logitech will be behind the remote controls for established pay TV suppliers, and ISPs will likely take the smartphone app approach rather than forking out for a $150-350 remote control.
For the latter, the top of the line Ultimate is far too expensive. You can buy a comprehensive set of devices for that price, including starter kits from the likes of WeMo, Wink and SmartThings. The hub has potential, but all three aforementioned hubs are cheaper and currently have more developed ecosystems – although this is an area where the 270,000 device database could prove its worth. We’ll have to wait and see how well it works in the emerging smart home market.