virgie watchmen: Logitech Harmony Touch remote pops up unannounced at Best Buy (Update: Pictures)

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Logitech Harmony Touch remote pops up unannounced at Best Buy (Update: Pictures)

It's been a long time since we've seen any new blood refreshing Logitech's line of universal remotes, but after indications of new devices on the way in an earnings call earlier this year tipster Andrew spotted this brand new Harmony Touch on store shelves. Arriving at Best Buy unheralded by any official announcement or specs so far, the box shots and list of features show the ability to control 15 different devices and (of course) that center mounted touchscreen. There's no mention of it on the Logitech site either, however one leaked blog post we spotted referred to this device and a Harmony Plus.

As our friends at Tech of the Hub note, the Touch clearly draws a lot of its heritage from the Harmony One and 1100 touchscreen remotes although to have ditched the dedicated Activity button for "one touch" control. The touchscreen itself supports both taps and swipes as well as up to 50 customizable channel icons, and the box lists both online setup and on-remote customization as features. According to Andrew it's rocking a price tag of $249 -- $50 above the current price of the Harmony One but $100 shy of the RF-equipped Harmony 900 -- hopefully we'll find out soon if what Logitech has added this time around makes it worth the wait.

Update: Another one of our readers, Zachary also saw it at Best Buy and bought one, check out a few out of the box pics in the gallery below, and drop any questions about its capabilities in the comments. He's digging it so far, saying that the touchscreen is responsive and it found icons for his area quickly, with options to change background, LCD brightness and screen timeout. There does not appear to be any RF support however, so it's IR control only.

Gallery: Logitech Harmony Touch universal remote