Physically, the R3 is excellent. The integration and overall usability are very strong. Setup is straightforward. The remote itself, however, has some serious issues. They may be resolvable, but at present I am not sure how.
Battery life is a well-established problem on this forum. For me, the R3 is effectively unusable without the iOS app, as the battery life of the remote is not fit for purpose. In regular use, this means using the remote for part of the day, then docking it to charge and switching to the app instead.
The dock connection is another weak point. Reconnection is too slow and often requires toggling Wi-Fi off and on to speed things up. This has a significant impact on usability. While it may sound minor, repeatedly waiting for the connection to re-establish quickly becomes frustrating.
The dark plastic on the dock is also too soft and scratches very easily. No functional impact but since everything else is high quality, this seems to stand out.
Overall, the R3 is close to being a true Harmony replacement, but these issues need to be resolved. Nevertheless, it is very close.
I feel the same. what I do not understand why the remote is working 3 times and it doesn’t work anymore for a while. Devices dont get switched on , or it’s not responding . When it works it’s great but many times it just doesn’t work / React.
That is what the Remote 4 is for. We are all just beta testers for UC. Except we paid a premium for the honor to find out what they couldn’t get right. My wife hates this remote and has said she’d rather have to keep 4 remotes in front of her than use this poorly executed instrument. Well, she calls it garbage, but you get the point.
Yeah, I too am very disappointed with this purchase and more than a bit sick of people defending the situation with ‘it’s a kick starter project, what did you expect?’. It is clear to me that the Development team is unmanaged and undisciplined. They waste time on non-roadmap items and simple hardware features like RS232 are still not working. I didn’t buy this to be a front-end for Home Assistant. I thought I bought a standalone, functional remote with a consumer friendly focus. My worst buying decision of the past 5 years.
Don’t feel too bad. I bought the Remote 2 and the Remote 3. Neither have come close to being a replacement for the Logitech Harmony that I hoped. At least I was able to sell my R2 on eBay for most of my money back. I’m hoping it will be the same when I throw in the towel on the R3. I’m finished supporting UC after this boondoggle.
I’m curious why someone hasn’t started a kick starter to acquire the rights to technology and manufacturing rights for the harmony remotes from Logitech. I think most of us jump for a harmony elite with a little better screen and faster processor for the saMe price paid for a UC remote. Maybe a small subscription fee for the cloud service and device updates to pay for costs of keeping the servers up.
I never want to use cloud services for my home devices again. The R3 can be fixed, it’s mostly software that’s the issue. I do miss how reliable the harmony was, no wifi reconnection, no base reconnection - it just worked.
When I first got the remote 3 at the beginning of July it was an up hill battle with it one of the docks didn’t work and had to go back - I felt it wasn’t there yet and couldn’t replace my Harmony Elite and I would choose that over the R3 and have the R3 next to me for testing - I had a lot of connection issues with it at first but now it seems to be ok - battery life was terrible getting about 10/13% drain every hour now I’m getting 5% drain every hour which I can cope with that - the community integrations are fantastic this was one of the main reasons wanting the R3 as I didn’t want to use iR on my devices - I still have my Harmony but now I do pick up the R3 to use first - hopefully another 6 months down the line it will be an even better than it is now - I do wish the dock was different as with that slot you put the remote in doesn’t feel solid like when you dock the Harmony it feels solid
I feel similarly now. The Harmony is still my go-to, and I use the R3 occasionally for fun, but I look forward to the day when I can fully switch away.
Since my first furstrated post I’ve had slightly better luck. The remote is programmed, but it’s far too unreliable to be my daily driver. Devices get turned on late, or not turned on at all, and IR repeater/extenders are shoddy at best. And, yes, the battery is suboptimal to be polite.
But I think the potential is there. It simply needs a good deal of work.
