The remote was shipped on 12/4. UPS guy kind of forgot to deliver it on 12/5 and nobody was home on 12/6 so I only got it on 12/9. Bummer.

Quality
In short, I love it. It doesn't look like self-made piece anymore. Visually very high quality plastic, feels very nice.

Performance
It seems much better that the original. Seems a lot more responsive. Original had a delay between pressing the button and the response. It seems that it's gone now. The range looks better as well. I had problems with certain place in my living room with the old remote - I had to extend my arm all the way up for it to respond. The new remote works in those places just fine. I'm not sure that the increased performance is due to 4 batteries instead of 3 or some other changes but it's most welcome.

Design
The way this remote is designed is that number buttons double as direction buttons. It's quite comfortable in this mode. My setup however is slightly different. My primary activity is Watch ReplayTV, which requires number buttons on both Play and Navigation modes. So I remapped directions buttons to transport control buttons. The only problem is that transport control buttons are a little hard to reach - you have to move the remote in your hand a little. But it in no way ruins the experience; it's rather a minor cosmetic point.


Conversion from the original remote.
Once I tried to load the existing profile to a new remote, the software detected new board and told me to unplug it and it changed my web account to a new version. Basically the conversion is pretty simple. In my case however, I had altered some device menus to send several key presses at once. For some reason that didn't work with the new remote. What was worth is that the system didn't point it out; instead I've got totally unrelated non-descriptive errors. It took me quite a while to figure out the problem but once I did it worked like a clock.

Bug?
These are two problems I've notice so far:

1. When updating the remote, the program normally saves the state so that once the update is done, the remote has the correct state. Worked fine with the older model but doesn't work with this. It keeps the receiver on but turns other equipment off.

2. A few times, it seem like something got stuck and the remote wouldn't respond to scroll wheel. However once I pressed the wheel or cancel button, it would "wake up".

Overall, I'm extremely satisfied with this model. I think it's A LOT better than the old one. While I've listed some problems I've encountered, all of them are quite minor (to me at least) and most of them will probably be fixed during future updates.

Hi TVAddict,
Thank you for your review of the SST-768, we are glad to hear that you are enjoying the new product. We have logged the 2 issues that you reported and will ensure that these are resolved as quickly as possible.

Please keep the comments and observations coming, your feedback is invaluable.

Regards,

Harmony Support Team

Mine arrived today, and unfortunately (for now), must go under the Christmas tree as a gift from my girlfriend. However, she does not know that I opened it and at least got to look at and compare it to my old Harmony.

When placed side by side with the original Harmony it is only one inch longer but appears even sleeker. In fact, it makes the original model look outdated and even cumbersome in design. The design of the buttons are much more sophisticated and stylish. The buttons themselves are slightly smaller and rounded, and have a good feel -almost like the gemstone buttons on some HTM products, very rich and elegant. The remote fits in the hand even more comfortably than the original.

Now, I can't wait 'til Christmas, and may have to sneak this baby out of the box to do some midnight programming! I think everyone will be very pleased with this model.

Hey!

No cheating, Ken.
Keep that Harmony under the tree!
It's not like you don't have any other remotes you can use. ;-)

Ken, I don't really know but I heard tortures are illegal in this country. :) But sneaking out at night to do some programming did sound like an addiction. I think you need to join Programmers Anonymous or something like that :)

LOL!! Mike: I never claimed to be remotely deprived! TVAddict: I do have a remote addiction. :-)

Assuredly, I do expect to sneak this out to program it. Then on Christmas morning I can open the box and point the remote at the HT and say, "gee honey...those Harmony guys even preprogramed it for us!"