Logitech Harmony Link Turns Your Phone Into the Ultimate Remote
Google TV is aiming to redefine the television viewing experience, so the way this experience is controlled has to be both familiar yet progressive. A remote with a full-blown QWERTY keyboard will be one option for accessing and searching content through Google TV, but passing around a keyboard isn’t exactly what people are used to in the living room. Enter Harmony Link, Logitech’s contribution to providing an awesome control experience on Google TV and their companion box.
Harmony Link is a technology that allows the Google TV box to communicate with all of your other home entertainment devices by turning various signals into infrared commands. But where are the control signals coming from? Well that would be your iPhone or Android device. Along with the Harmony Link technology, Logitech will offer it’s remote control app free to smartphone users.
This app is up to par with Logitech’s biggest and baddest Harmony remotes, so now you not only already have the most powerful remote possible in your pocket, but you have a remote that can be constantly updated with new device schemes so it will always be able to control all of your home entertainment gear. You can even have multiple phones operating as remotes at the same time. No more hogging up the TV time (for good or for bad), and if you lose this one in the sofa cushions at least it has built-in GPS…
But say you don’t like Logitech’s remote app? They have made the Harmony Link platform open, so some great third party remote options are sure to follow. The technology is pretty cool to say the least. Google TV won’t be available until the fall, and who knows how it will catch on with the general public, but we can only hope that at least the “smartphone as a remote” concept sticks.