Recently, my parents asked me to get them a new remote for their living room... the second one in one year.

And that's when suddenly, a weird flashback hit me.

When I was like 10 or 12 I remember seeing a Logitech remote in a magazine ad... with a... screen?

What the hell was that?

Well... this... is that.

The Logitech Harmony 880/885 depending on whether you lived in the US or EU and whether you liked colors apparently.

This remote was originally sold at the low low price of 249 DOLLARS-I got it for 13 shipped to my door. Yeah turns out that products made in 2005 tend to go for pennies in the future.

In 2001 a Canadian company named "Easy Zapper" started making "smart remotes" named "Harmony" and got pretty positive reviews The company then rebranded to Intrigue in 2004 aaand got acquired by Logitech for 24 million dollars

Logitech started to manufacture new and improved smart universal remote under the "Logitech Harmony" brand This... is one of them.

The 885 was sold for 250 dollars new in 2006... but I got my unit for just 13.

So... what the hell is this thing? Why does it look like the unlegitimate son of a Tivo remote and a RAZR and why am I making a video on it?

Well, the Harmony remotes are not just remotes... They are basically mini computers in the shape of a remote.

You can use these remotes in two ways: the first one is called "Devices" and it makes it work like any standard universal remote

You select what you want to control on the color screen here And you can use both the real and virtual buttons to... do that

This is... honestly very neat, but it nowhere as interesting as the remote's key feature

GAMING MACROS... ok... they are technically called "Activities"... but they are basically that

Let's say I want to watch a VHS tape on this old TV here

Well, I can just press the Watch VHS button... and the remote is automatically going to turn on the TV, change the TV input to AV Turn on the VCR and press Play.

All of this is... completely customizable and can work with anything that supports infrared control

But what about the specific buttons that weren't even INVENTED in 2006? Can you use this remote with new devices? Can you make activities with them? YES... yes you can!