My 555 is starting to show its age with a few of the buttons starting to be not so positive (failing contacts) so am looking into a suitable replacement.

The 555 allows up to 15 devices and 15 activities and I currently have 12 of each set up. That said, I think I can whittle it down to 8 if I lose the dummy device "PVR Status" I use to explicitly control the ON/OFF'ness of individual devices (I don't like activity switching doing this) and move the functionality of that and of my AV switch to be defined as soft keys on the AV Amp device and not have two different activities for my DVD recorder depending if I am using it to play a DVD or a CD so want the TV on or off (given I rarely play CDs anymore anyway).

That means the Harmony 650 becomes a candidate which I like as it retains a number keypad which the higher spec models don't and I am not sure if I would get used to not having that.

Anyone used both a 555 and 650 and how did you get on with the 650 by comparison? Any other helpful comments welcomed.

Think it is a toss up between the 650 and the Ultimate One. The latter has the advantage of handling 15 device and activities so can do a straight migrate of my 555 set up then tinker to suit. But I have the * and # keys on the 555 set up to go to Recordings and to Timers for each device so I assume I could make those two functions as top of the soft screen functions? What is the point of the DVR button? Could I set that to Recordings and a long-press to Timers?

I've just switched from a 555 to a 650 and found the change very easy. Hardest part is getting used to a different layout of buttons!
The only settings which won't automatically be loaded onto the new remote are your custom settings, so you'll have to set them up again manually.
I would suspect you'll have enough spare buttons to use for whatever you need - I don't have any use for the up/down buttons just below the screen so you could use them for your recordings/timers options.

Thanks for that. Yeh, knew about the custom settings, the only one I not sure I can replicate is the hidden Recordings code for my Youview box unless the software lets me cut and paste the binary code from my 555 config?

Spent some time this afternoon trimming the number of devices and activities on my 555 down to eight apiece so I now have a config that will transfer to a 650.

Needed to keep my HDMI switch as a separate device as it does not have discrete source buttons but cycles through them so it needs to remember what it is currently set to then step through the right number of times when changing activity. I suppose I could have it step through to end up on the same known input on each activity termination sequence but instead took the *big* step of losing the VCR device instead!

Still not sure which replacement to go for though. Saw a store in town with the Ultimate One reduced by a tenner which I could take as a serendipitous omen to go for that but still not sure about not having a number-pad nor by the long-press mode for the recording skip functions though I could programme those to go on the first screen along with the Recordings and Timers functions.

TBH I just hope my 555 keeps on working sufficiently well to not have to make a choice just yet.

Took the plunge last week and went for the Ultimate One. The Harmony software was able to automatically migrate the config from my 555 apart from it not recognising I was using codeset 2 for my Humax Foxsat to avoid clashing with my Youview box so had to redo that. Was pleasantly surprised though that it had recognised the hidden Recordings code for the Youview box that I had manually entered (using info from the Youview forums).

Over a day or two tinkered with the hard / soft buttons assignments across the various devices and now have it set up so that I infrequently need to access the soft buttons. My main custom button assigments are

DVR button: Recordings / Timers (short press / long press)
Exit button: PVR On / Off (long press) - I like to manually control turning these on and off
Info button: Function / Options / etc (long press)

Was finding that I was accidently activating the screen as I changed hand position from using the main buttons at the bottom to the transport buttons (Play / Pause etc) at the top so have Screen Lock turned on, needing an extra swipe to get to the soft buttons.

Not missing the physical number pad as much as I feared and only using it now for entering search strings. The Foxsat and the Digitalstream PVRs have easy to use channel lists to make jumping around the channels relatively easy as an alternative. The Youview PVR does not (just one of its UI bugbears) but using the Favourite channels feature for this device ameliorates the omission and allows you to jump around the EPG as well as actually switching channels. It still seems an odd design decision to not allow Favourites to be defined per Activity though.

In summary, I think it is a keeper though I still have the 555 on hand to use when the One is being charged (lasts several days even with extra use while tinkering with its set up) as well as my Foxsat multi-device remote which allows me to do basic tweaking of the TV (aspect ratio, source), AV amp (surround mode, source) and the HDMI switch (source - its small remote is taped to the back of my Foxsat remote).

The other thing I have done is to "unassign" all gesture commands as I find them more of a hindrance than a help (clumsy hand / finger syndrome again). Would like to disable the gesture screen completely but alas that is not possible (despite many pleas to allow this on the Logitech / Harmony forums).

Forgot to add that while the sculpted backed feels comfortable in the hand it makes it tricky to balance on the arm of the chair. Problem solved by putting it face down.

One more tweak needed: Changed the inter-key delay from 100ms to 200ms for the Youview box and now the Recordings sequence (Menu + hidden Recordings code) works reliably.