One Remote to Rule Them All

My fiancé jokes that, if our life were made into a sitcom, the title of the show would be “When OCD Meets ADD.”  He is the “ADD” in the show and I get to be the “OCD”.  Now, let me make this clear: neither one of us is officially diagnosed but there are definite tendencies in this household.  We both love all things techie and that quickly equals lots of different gadgets needed to entertain us.  He is constantly on the hunt for newer, bigger, better…and it all seems to come with a remote.  At last count, we were up to five in the living room, not counting the video game remotes.

It All Seems to Come With a Remote...

Enter my part in the show: I put my foot down.  No more remotes.  At all.  For any reason.  My OCD tendencies rear their ugly head because I just can’t take the clutter of it all.  I actually almost asked if we could get rid of something because the plastic rectangles hanging around are making me twitch.  Not to mention the fact that we should just go ahead and buy stock in AA and AAA batteries or that it takes a Master’s degree to turn the TV on.

I can hear the canned laughter now as we wrestle over the benefits of a Blu Ray player and Hi-Def receiver vs a calm, collected household headed by a woman who is no longer threatening to stomp a poor, plastic tool to bits and pieces.  There’d probably be some eye-rolling (from me) and gnashing of the teeth (from him).

But, like all sitcoms, mine has a happy ending too. No more eye-rolling or teeth-gnashing and definitely a lot fewer batteries.

Enter the Logitech Harmony 650 Universal Remote, also known as the God-mote in our house.  My fiancé found it and I just didn’t believe him at first. A new techie tool, and yes, another remote but now it’s the only one!  Yup, you read that right.  One remote controls the TV, the cable box, the receiver, the Blu Ray player, the CD player/tuner, and the Wii.  Just one.  Even better? It’s just one push of one button to get everything up and running.  Even our six-year old can turn on the TV now, leaving us to sleep in a bit on the weekends.

Logitech offers a few different Harmony remote options, ranging in price from $29.99 all the way up to $349.99.  The Logitech Harmony 650 Universal Remote is right in the middle of the price range and is pretty easily programmed too.  It comes with a USB cord that you connect to your computer and download the information for your devices.  Once you find your devices, you can choose to customize the big buttons near the screen to do the things you choose most often and you’re all set: one remote to rule them all.

One Remote to Rule Them All

At this point in the sitcom, the canned laughter would fade out and the camera would close in on my fiancé and I cuddling together on the couch, sighing contentedly, with only one remote to be found.  Cue the, “Awwww!”

The Logitech Harmony 650 Universal Remote can be purchased in store or on-line at Radio Shack.  It’s regularly priced at $69.99, a pretty good price to pay for a happy ending!

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