Hello,
Years ago I had one of the original pronto black and white units, I loved it but my son stepped on it about 3 years ago. I replaced it with a harmony 880, which I haven't been all that happy with. The programming is nice, and it has the macros (er, "activities") that I need, but responsiveness has been very poor on it, and IR strength seems very weak. Sometimes I'll press/hold volume down and it'll be 4 or 5 seconds before the icon even appears on the screen that it is transmitting, and I have to be nearly pointing EXACTLY at my devices for it to work, if I'm even say 45 degrees off it won't work (whereas stock remotes will work fine in much worse angles). Its gotten to the point not where some buttons flat out don't work sometimes.

So I need to replace. Maybe I just had one bad harmony experience, so I'm open to considering the harmony one if it improves on these issues. I was also looking at the URC-R50 as the price is very nice (I don't want to drop another $150 and be dissatisfied like with the 880) and reviews seems to say it has what I need (but a PITA to program) and has good IR strength. Unfortunately I don't like the lack of rechargeable batteries.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is there another remote I should be considering? I really wish the R50 had a PC based setup, but I think I could live with the pain of setting it up as once its done its done, IF it solves my problems and can be set up to provide the macros I need (aka "watch tv" turns on the required devices, set to right inputs on tv, reciever; "turn off" shuts everything off), and is easy enough to use ONCE it is programmed. My devices are all fairly new so I'm not too worried about having the required codes.

I really WANT to believe I just got a dud 880 and the One will be MUCH better on all counts, but I was hoping for some opinions to confirm this before i drop that much cash on another harmony. Ultimately I want whatever remote will give me the best IR and reliability regardless of the effort required to set it up properly.

I'd appreciate any suggestions or insight you can provide.

THANKS!