Version History: Harmony remote
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Hello, and welcome to The Verge Cast, the flagship podcast of IR Blasters. I'm your friend, David Pierce, and our regular show is off today, but we want to play you an episode from the new season of Version History. Version History, if you don't know, is our show about old technology. We tell the story of some of the most important products in tech history. On this episode, it's one of our favorites. It's the Harmony Remote, the universal remote that promised to give you one thing to control everything. It's me, Nilay Patel, The Verge's John Higgins, and Matt Rogers, the former co-founder of Nest. Nest, by the way, another episode we're doing this season, but Matt demanded to talk about Harmony. It's a really fun episode.
I think you'll enjoy it. Here it is. Around the turn of the century, two guys in Canada had an idea that maybe they could build a product that could simultaneously control your TV, your home theater, your VCR, your DVD player, and everything else in your living room. and that maybe if they could get that product into your living room, all that would be just the beginning. From the Virgin Vox Media, this is Virgin History, a show about the best and worst and strangest and most important products in tech history. I'm David Pierce, and today it's time for the story of the Harmony Remote.
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What is the Harmony Remote and why was it created?
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All right, we're back. It is time for what I think is going to be a strangely heated conversation about TV remotes. Joining me in the studio, Nilay Patel. Hello. How many Harmony remotes would you say you've owned and used over the years? Over half a dozen, which is a lot. I mean, a lot. This category lasted maybe 10 years, and I had over six is what I'm going to say. Also here, John Higgins, our TV and audio reviewer. You have as long a history with Harmony stuff as just about anybody, it seems like. Harmony remotes were one of the first things that I reviewed back 20 plus years ago when I was at Home Theater Magazine. Also joining us remotely, Matt Rogers, CEO of Mill, the co-founder of Nest back in the day, who I will just say fairly straightforwardly demanded to be on this episode.
Matt, welcome to the show. I have a lot of opinions about this. Yeah. Tell us briefly about your Harmony history. I had no choice. There's nothing else out there like this. And even though this product has been gone for a long time, still a user. That's amazing. Nest had a lot of Logitech people at it, from what I recall. Was that you saying, I got to get some of this Harmony juice at Nest?
Yeah, look, their product marketing team, I thought, was one of the best in the business.
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