I’m very pleased today to announce a brand new review of the Intrigue Technologies Harmony SST-768 remote control. The SST-768 is an “activity” based remote that merges the components of your home theater into a single, easy-to-use device. Programmed over the Internet via a Mini USB port, the compact Harmony intelligently creates tasks based upon your components, such as “watch TV” and “play a DVD”, designed to always keep your system in complete synchronization.

Intrigue Technologies, formerly known as Easy Zapper, has taken the original Harmony SST-745 model (read the full review here) and massaged it into what could almost be described as a completely different product. The SST-768 is a complete physical redesign and adds a large number of very useful hard buttons. But don’t be fooled by its small stature – there’s more under the hood than meets the eye. Interested in seeing what this little powerhouse can do?

Read our full-length Harmony SST-768 review!

The Clicker Picker's been updated!
About two years ago I first developed the Clicker Picker, which is an interactive program that, based upon the selections you make, generates a statistical analysis of the remote controls in our database and returns with what it decides are the best technical matches, in order.

I’ve just completed a substantial upgrade to the program that enhances its versatility and power. One of the main upgrades is the availability of two new scoring options. The classic “smart” mode makes educated guesses based on your selected features. As "better" remotes can often be found just slightly out of a specific category, the program grades, rather than removes, remotes that don't exactly match your criteria.

The new requirements mode also scores all remotes as with “smart” mode, but keeps an additional tally of how close the remote matches your exact requirements. The results page places remotes that better match your requirements, but otherwise scored lower, above all others.

Finally, the new strict mode absolutely requires that a remote match your requirements. This mode is recommended only for power users, since it’s quite easy to enter options that result in no matches. This mode can also be used to find remotes that have a specific feature – for example, keep everything on “doesn’t matter” but tick “Pronto hex” to see which remotes have Pronto infrared hex code support.

Which leads to another important aspect of the Clicker Picker: side-by-side comparison. In addition to viewing remotes found using the traditional search mode, you can also use the optional form at the bottom of the page to see a list of all available remotes (even older models). Then, make your own side-by-side comparison list, with up to 15 remotes, from scratch. Ever wondered what the differences were between the Philips Pronto TSU2000, Marantz RC5000i and Yamaha RAV-2000? Now you can find out!

Other new Clicker Picker features include:

• New questions and answers to help you find the best remote.
• New “doesn’t matter” answer can be given on all questions, handy for those who aren’t exactly sure what they need.
• Greater number of optional remote control features.
• Results better match requirements thanks to smarter scoring in default mode.
• Handy numerical scores now shown for each remote match.
• Smarter output formatting.
• More specification catagories, such as "adjustable IR hold times", "variables", "tv guide", "surf internet", "pronto hex codes".

You may notice that the Clicker Picker only encompasses remote controls that have been reviewed on Remote Central. This is because the program can't be effective with just basic detail - such as "8 device learning remote with macros". It needs to know exact, minute details about all aspects of the product. If you've got a universal remote control not covered and are willing to provide such information, please let me know and I'll email you an MS Excel sheet that can be filled out.

Also, since there’s a lot of new code in there, please be sure to let me know about any bugs that you may find.

Try out the Clicker Picker!