Harmony Remote = Double-plus Good!

[Lazybones]

I have been looking at the 650 at Costco every time I have been there lately. It keeps tempting me.


I loved my previous harmony remote but broke the volume rocker on it.

[Tom]

I have been looking at the 650 at Costco every time I have been there lately. It keeps tempting me.


I loved my previous harmony remote but broke the volume rocker on it.

NCIX has some refurbs on for $39.99. Tis where I got mine. I'm a bit warry of refurbs after getting a rather broken Refurbished Lenovo Tablet from NCIX, but I figured why the heck not. its $40! Mine also arrived in rather good condition (on the outside at least). I don't see any scratches or nicks or anything.

[Lazybones]

I have been looking at the 650 at Costco every time I have been there lately. It keeps tempting me.


I loved my previous harmony remote but broke the volume rocker on it.

NCIX has some refurbs on for $39.99. Tis where I got mine. I'm a bit warry of refurbs after getting a rather broken Refurbished Lenovo Tablet from NCIX, but I figured why the heck not. its $40! Mine also arrived in rather good condition (on the outside at least). I don't see any scratches or nicks or anything.

Thanks for the heads up, I thought the $69 price at Costco was good, but I have NCIX stores locally here, I might just walk in ad get two!

[Tom]

You know what's extra annoying? Both my HTPC and HDMI switch are programmable. They don't have a default set of remote mappings. And it seems that the harmony software doesn't much like dealing with that situation. I may have to manually put in hex codes into the web site...

[Tom]

Wow their site has gotten slow in the past hour or so.

And now that its fast again, its down for maintenance wtf logitech.

This is why websites are incredibly stupid ways to configure physical devices or local software. Just No. I'm looking at you Logitech and Adobe. I think I'd prefer running the software via wine or in a vm than this

[Lazybones]

On the flip side they can almost instantly support new devices and classes of device without needin to redeploy a client.

If you have a name brand device it is dead simple to set up. And if you have the original remote it is super easy to clone.

There site was also unreliable the last time I used it so I totally agree with you on that point however.

[Tom]

So here's some fun...

Using the wizard in any shape or form creates a broken (full automatic), or semi broken (advanced) set up for watching TV. Letting the wizard do everything leaves my hd cable box out of the mix, and assumes my htpc is doing everything. Using the advanced setup (of the wizard) leads to a similar problem, but it lets me add the cable box to the config, but it won't let me remove the htpc for some unknown reason.

Using the full manual advanced setup, and choosing a utility activity lets me setup my activies 100% correctly, except they don't get assigned to the "hardware" activity buttons on the remote, and there seems to be no way to assign anything to them manually.

Frustrating to say the least.

It mostly works, but it could be better

[Mr. Analog]

This is the problem with most universal remotes I find though, they're super-easy for happy path stuff (common brands / makes / contemporary models), it's when you introduce something a little different into the mix that things start to get stupid.

I've owned two universal remotes in my life (not Harmony though) and had lots of hassle trying to get everything to click, so for now I'm stuck with 4 remotes on my coffee table, not so much of a hassle for me but for everyone else who tries to use my setup I guess... not that that's been a problem lately LOL

[Melbosa]

Not to shoot it down but you do own one of the cheaper models of the remote.  I have a 550 and a Harmony One, and I can tell you the features available and assignable on the Harmony One vastly outshine that of the 550.  So you may be limited by the model you are using Tom.  There has to be reasons to buy the more expensive versions after all

[Tom]

Not to shoot it down but you do own one of the cheaper models of the remote.  I have a 550 and a Harmony One, and I can tell you the features available and assignable on the Harmony One vastly outshine that of the 550.  So you may be limited by the model you are using Tom.  There has to be reasons to buy the more expensive versions after all

The 650 is rather capable. Its just the online software that is a pile of garbage. It can assign activities to the built in activity buttons, but only if you use its retarded wizard apparently, or I missed some crucial option buried deep in some random link some place. The places they put things on the app just doesn't make a lot of sense half the time.

It is able to control all my stuff just fine, but its a tad annoying having to press the "other activities" button to get to the activity I most use. And the reason I have to do that, is it won't respect the sort order option on the web interface. But other than that, its fine.

[Thorin]

I bought the 650 for my mom and for her simple setup it worked great.  I had to put Watch VCR under the Other Activities button, though.  And I think I re-programmed one of her standard activities buttons with the steps in this link: http://logitech-en-amr.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11888.  Although that might only list the "wizard" activities; but then you could customize one of the "wizard" activities if you wanted?

Yes, their configuration software sucks ass, especially the completely-web-based version.  See if you can find the old software (looks like the one on the left here: http://www.logitech.com/en-ca/447/7571), and if not I'll look for it.

For more complex setups, I agree with Mel, get the expensive remote as it's got way more options (Harmony One now?  Used to be the 880, I think).  I had the 550 at first, $120, someone sat on it and broke the screen, then got an 880, $140 I think, and it's still running now even though I've changed TVs and added an Xbox and completely re-jiggered my connections what with HDMI available and all that...

[Tom]

I bought the 650 for my mom and for her simple setup it worked great.  I had to put Watch VCR under the Other Activities button, though.  And I think I re-programmed one of her standard activities buttons with the steps in this link: http://logitech-en-amr.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11888.  Although that might only list the "wizard" activities; but then you could customize one of the "wizard" activities if you wanted?

Nope. Even the manual setup makes you go through a wizard. I haven't tried every single option all the way through that wizard, but if I select "Watch Television" from the manual setup option, then "Watch TV ( Digital cable, Basic cable, Antenna)", it still adds my HTPC to the list of devices it thinks it needs to use. Even though there's a "Watch TV ( Media Center PC)" option lower down.

Yes, their configuration software sucks ass, especially the completely-web-based version.  See if you can find the old software (looks like the one on the left here: http://www.logitech.com/en-ca/447/7571), and if not I'll look for it.

I just downloaded that, and it seems to be nearly the exact same as the web based one I was using directly on linux, except what I was using was fugly. I think what happened was I was accessing it directly through a browser rather than through their app which probably styles it. This windows wrapper for the web software does seem to have the option to customize the activity buttons. For the life of me I couldn't find it when accessing the website directly.

Ah looking about, it seems they have /three/ separate web based apps. The two on the link you posted, and this one. The latter is the one I was using, and its a pile of horse hockey. But it does support being used on linux, that site basically just sends down some EZHex files that you tell to load up with an app called Congruity (which uses an OSS lib called Concordance. anyone else sensing a theme here?).

But yeah, the older windows web based thing looks good so far. haven't had any problems. It's a bit annoying having to wait the whole 30s or so it takes the VM to boot up, but what can you do

For more complex setups, I agree with Mel, get the expensive remote as it's got way more options (Harmony One now?  Used to be the 880, I think).  I had the 550 at first, $120, someone sat on it and broke the screen, then got an 880, $140 I think, and it's still running now even though I've changed TVs and added an Xbox and completely re-jiggered my connections what with HDMI available and all that...

This is a $100 remote normally. I wouldn't call it "low end".

I really don't think the remote itself is the problem here. Just their setup software tries to be clever, and fails oddly.

Blah. I could rant on and on and on about it. Maybe later

[Thorin]

Well, in the land of Harmony Remotes (and rainbows and lollipops), the 4100 remote is the cheap / low-end one   The $350-$500 remotes are the high-end ones.  Anyway, I suffered the same rage as you when I was trying to initially configure my remote, and what made it worse was running the old software on a Celeron-based laptop with 1GB of RAM over a wireless B connection...  Like, HOLY MOLASSES-IN-JANUARY slow.  There were times I got up and made a sandwich waiting for the next screen to load.

However, now it's done and it works awesome and the kids and wife and mother have no problems figuring it out and it takes one minute to explain to visitors new to our house.

[Tom]

I dunno, this looks like the low end Harmony remote

So far the 650 is working quite well, now that I've got the activity keys mapped properly, I'm not so annoyed with it. Hated (first world problem?) having to press an extra couple keys to get to the "Watch Video" activity.

Ok, the only issue remaining really is the delay on button presses. I'm pretty darn sure I was able to get it to send commands to my htpc with almost no delay. I just have to figure out how to do that again. As it is, it lags behind by a couple presses if I try to use this remote like my old MCE remote.

Oh, and it seems this "new" software doesn't even have the option of sorting the activities. Kinda sucks, but what can you do. I'm happy with just being able to assign things to the main buttons.

[Thorin]

You got the activity keys mapped correctly?  Yay!  Was it one of my links that helped?

To alter delays you can either change it for the device as a whole, or _I think_ for the device for that activity.

I've learned to push the button for the activity I want and put the remote on the armrest of the couch as I get comfortable.  It can take 4 to 6 seconds for everything to switch on.  Kids walking in front of the remote messes that up a little and makes it take longer as I press Help for the remote to fix the problem.