Can anyone explain why 6 modes is a good idea? I have only been using my Harmony for a few days, but selecting modes in my Tivo Television activity is already becoming tiresome. You watch in Play mode. When the program is over you switch to navigate mode (one press of mode) to go into menus and delete the watched program. Still in navigate mode, you select another program to watch. Then you press mode 5(!) times to get back to play mode. If you forget to make the mode change, when the ads come on you press what you think is FF only to be disappointed.
Here is my preliminary conclusion. There has to be so many modes because Harmony have eliminated too many physical buttons. Having fewer buttons than my previous universals is a good thing - but has Harmony gone too far?
If they had a few more buttons - for example, if they had two "joy stick" circles of five buttons instead of one circle, we would be able to watch Tivo all night long without having to change modes once. One circle would be navigation and one circle would be play mode. This would also allow the buttons to be more appropriately labelled. When you are in play mode, it is reasonable to press a button with a "play" symbol on it when you want to play. But in navigate mode the button means "select" but is still labelled "play".
I would love someone to explain to me that I am wrong and just need to get used to the new method of operation. Or maybe that I am missing something about how to use this thing. I love some of the concepts and I really want it to work. But at the moment, I can't imagine teaching my wife to use it - even for the normal Tivo operation (watch several Tivo shows in a row). And I certainly can't imagine teaching her how to resync it if something goes wrong. I predict that the Tivo remote will be back in her hand the minute I leave the room.
So, here is my conclusion - please argue with it and show me where I am wrong.
1. Harmony has too few buttons and too many modes. By doubling the number of buttons, they would still be simpler than the typical universal remote, but they could combine play and navigate mode and thus be much easier to operate in the most common uses (like watching a string of Tivo shows or watching a DVD - both cases where you want to mix play and navigate functions without having to keep changing modes.
2. The mode change button is inadequate. A more direct method of changing modes is needed. At least we should be able to go forwards and backwards through the list of modes. Then we could move from play mode to navigate mode and back in one action instead of one press to go from play to navigate and 5 presses to go from navigate to play. This bidirectional ability could be acheived with a rocker switch or with a second wheel.
Thanks in advance for showing me the errors of my analysis - or at least for agreeing with some of my frustrations.
