Logitech Harmony 650 Remote

Pros: All I can say is wow. I should have gotten this remote a long time ago. What caused me to purchase it is my 22 year old Pioneer Receiver/Amp. I picked up my remote for it the other day and it was dead. I was like man, because the Pioneer remote controlled most everything on the Amp. After a couple trips to the amp to turn it on, etc. I started looking. I read reviews, I read forums and decided I would give this a try.
UPS delivered it and in a matter of minutes I was controlling all my components from this remote. What shocked me initially was the software. I installed it, created account, let the s/w do the initial setup and I was nearly ready to go. So I type in Pioneer and VSX-9900S into the database and wham it is added to my device list, then my old Pioneer C/D player, wham, it's there, the rest of the components are modern so they were there also. I setup each device, which is easy, not unless your brain dead, and then it uploaded to the remote and I was ready to go. So yes, I am very happy!

Cons: None Yet

Overall Review: Did I say Wow?

Pros: Nice orange button backlight
Nice button layout and feel.
Lightweight.

Extended warranty available.

Cons: Died 89 days after purchase.
Feels cheap.
Poor signal.
Compared to the Harmony 880, the signal strength on this is horrible. Our devices dont receive a signal unless there's a clear & direct path. When my wife is reclining watching tv, this means moving the wood coffee table or lifting the remote over her head to use it. With the 880, if I was testing the buttons in another room, it would transmit to the entertainment center. The coffee table certainly wasn't a problem.
The well documented problem of not turning everything off correctly is a constant headache with the 650.
It recently began to act up - restarting itself randomly and not turning everything off or switching components correctly. Putting in fresh batteries and a piece of cardboard to hold them in didnt help. It gave up the ghost last night and rebooted into 'safe mode' with a bunch of code on the screen. After removing the batteries and replacing, it restarts whenever any button at the top is pushed, making it useless.

Luckily I bought the extended warranty from NewEgg - I'll be using the Logitech one for now but I foresee a lot of returns on this remote in the future and will certainly be using the extended ... if I keep using it.

Overall Review: I bought this to replace my Harmony 880 which worked like a champ for years. The buttons became unreliable over time due to drops, spills and kid roughness. After opening it up and fixing the buttons several times the family pushed me to buy a new one. The 650 was cheap (refurb) and although it has fewer features seemed to do what we needed. Having gone through the Logitech software Initiation/learning curve for the 880, setup was easy enough and actually provided a couple of buttons we didnt have before.

A week ago my 6 year old son got frustrated with it (yes, he can use it as well as I can...when it's working) and said to me "dad, i wish we could use the old pointer remote, this one is no good. Maybe you could try to fix the old one?"
Looks like I'll be pulling it out this weekend and seeing what I can do to revive it. The problem with it is that the contacts have been pushed down on so many times that they now take a lot more pressure from the keys on top. The silicone between the buttons and contacts has also compressed down. This sometimes causes the contact to get stuck being pushed so hard and fires repeatedly - when it's the volume button it blasts the radio to full volume and requires running to the receiver to silence it. A few spacers between the silicone and contact worked for awhile, but kept slipping out. Time to play McGyver and find a better solution.
I wish now I had bought a used 880 somewhere for about the same price as this 650 refurb, even if it was just to use as parts to fix ours. This 650 will only see a fraction as many button pushes as the 880.