Logitech bows out of the Harmony Universal Remote market (1 Viewer)

[Eric_L]

I cannot say I am surprised as universal remote controls are quickly becoming irrelevant.
i have had a Harmony since 2000 or so and it worked well for the time - but lets admit it; there are many ‘clunky’ parts (volume control, ir issues, unreliable routines around favorites, etc)

the universal remote is going the way of the 8track player thanks to the evolution of home technology.

First is the iPhone. This little device is super-handy and has replaced *many* items, from video cameras to calculators.

Second is smart devices. Nearly every modern device now ‘streams’ some sort of online content. This also allows it to take commands over wifi - much more precise than ir.

Third is home hubs. I personally just upgraded from Wink2 to Hubitat and I have to say - I love it. There is a bit of a learning curve and documentation is clunky, however the potential of this little device is profound.

I discovered than I can control most of my smart home devices with the Hubitat. I can even format my own control panel for it. Voice integration is also quite do-able.

I can tell Alexa “Lets watch a movie” and she will drop my screen, turn on my av equipment, change inputs, turn off the lights, close the blinds, and give me a verbal reminder to open the cabinet where my projector hides.
(eventually I will get an actuator and automate that)

I will need to upgrade a few of my older ‘dumb’ devices to smart devices. So be it. Nobody said our hobby is cheap! The higher level of control is worth it.

As the home automation and smart devices become more and more ubiquitous I am certain that this will get easier and more intuitive to set up.

 

[Chewbabka]

A phone would be a poor replacement for a remote. Want to change the volume? Unlike your phone, navigate to an app, click volume up. Convenient!

Besides, I don’t want to be on my phone when I’m watching a movie.

 

[dpippel]

Not only that, but it’s impossible to operate a touchscreen device by feel. I don’t want to have to look at my phone every time I want to do something simple, like change the volume.

 

[TonyD]

With at least the hsrmony hub app you can use the phone’s volume side buttons.

 

[SamT]

A phone can never ever replace a hard button remote.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

As I posted a few days ago, I ordered the 665 as an emergency backup for my still-functioning 650. I intended to stick the 665 in a drawer until I need it, but did want to test it out so I did power it up and used the Windows Harmony software to add/configure it. I was pleased to discover that I did not have to program the 665 from scratch -- the software let me copy all of my setup/activities from the 650 without any hassle. I spent about 10 minutes playing with the 665 to confirm it worked and it seemed to work identically to my 650. Now the 665 is in a drawer waiting for me to drop the 650 on my tile coffee table and bust it.

I finally got around to setting up the 665 I ordered a few weeks ago (we were out of town for several weeks). While the My Harmony app did provide a function to copy settings from my existing 650 remote to the 665, it only copied the basic activity settings. None of the customized button settings, favorite channels or fixed activity button assignment settings were copied. I have 8 activities, and each activity has numerous customized buttons. So, it took me longer to program the remote than it should have if the copy setting function had duplicated everything, as it should.

 

[pipes]

I'm a novice HT enthusiast. My "theater" would not impress most of you. A Yamaha V385 with some basic speakers, Dish, Roku, BluRay. I had a drop down screen and overhead projector but no room in the new place for now, so a 55" flat screen is holding the fort.

I would like to press a button and have the appropriate equipment come online and be selected, then control the device (Roku, whatever) with the same remote. The sort of thing it sounds like the Harmony would do.

I don't want to buy a product that is discontinued or lacks solid support.

I don't want to buy a product that uses data on my habits as part of their revenue stream. (no calling home to say this dude likes watching old "I Love Lucy" episodes)

I am comfortable with integrating electronics (Arduino, Raspberry, etc) and have extensive software development background, so if the answer is "build it" that's fine.

Is there any COTS solution that will answer my simple needs, in one device?

(if there's a better place to ask this point me to it, please. But I'll bet a lot of people are reading this thread the past few days and saying OH S**T!)

 

[cinefan]

I finally got around to setting up the 665 I ordered a few weeks ago (we were out of town for several weeks). While the My Harmony app did provide a function to copy settings from my existing 650 remote to the 665, it only copied the basic activity settings. None of the customized button settings, favorite channels or fixed activity button assignment settings were copied. I have 8 activities, and each activity has numerous customized buttons. So, it took me longer to program the remote than it should have if the copy setting function had duplicated everything, as it should.

Well I feel bad if I misled so I apologize. I thought everything had copied when I did the same exercise so I rechecked my 665. You're right about the favorite channels -- they didn't copy over. I guess I forgot to check for those because I almost never use them so I missed that entirely.

And I don't think I do customized buttons for the activities -- to be honest I'm not entirely sure I even knew -- or perhaps I forgot -- that that was something I could do. I don't remember doing such a thing so I suspect I use whatever button mappings got setup when I setup the activities themselves. So I can well believe those don't carry over either.

I think my fixed activity assignments did copy though -- unless I'm not understanding what that is. I happen to have 8 activities too -- stuff I created like "Listen to Records" and "Watch Roku" and "Play Game" -- all of which I can access on what I think they call soft activity buttons. That is to say, I hit the More Activities button (the star) and then all the activities display on the screen and I scroll through them and select them from the screen-side buttons there. My 8 activities selectable that way all carried over as far as I can tell identically (though, again, I may not have customized them much). And the 3 fixed activity buttons still have the 3 activities out of the 8 that I had assigned to them on the 650 (if I'm thinking of the right thing: in my case I have my "Watch TV" activity for the TV button, "Watch DVD/Blu" for the "clapper" movie button, and "Listen to CDs" for the musical note button).

You're right of course: everything should copy over. The remotes are substantially the same so I can't imagine why they can't copy everything.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I think my fixed activity assignments did copy though -- unless I'm not understanding what that is. I happen to have 8 activities too -- stuff I created like "Listen to Records" and "Watch Roku" and "Play Game" -- all of which I can access on what I think they call soft activity buttons. That is to say, I hit the More Activities button (the star) and then all the activities display on the screen and I scroll through them and select them from the screen-side buttons there. My 8 activities selectable that way all carried over as far as I can tell identically (though, again, I may not have customized them much). And the 3 fixed activity buttons still have the 3 activities out of the 8 that I had assigned to them on the 650 (if I'm thinking of the right thing: in my case I have my "Watch TV" activity for the TV button, "Watch DVD/Blu" for the "clapper" movie button, and "Listen to CDs" for the musical note button).

You're right of course: everything should copy over. The remotes are substantially the same so I can't imagine why they can't copy everything.

Stephen,

By "fixed activity" assignments, I meant the three hard activity buttons at the top of the remote labeled "Watch TV", "Watch a Movie" and "Listen to Music". I have the "Listen to Music" button assigned to my "Watch Apple TV" activity, and the app instead assigned it to my "Listen to iPod" activity on the new 665. It did pick the correct activity for "Watch a Movie", but that was probably just by chance. I have three activities defined for disc players -- one for the Panasonic 820 UHD player, one for the Sony X800 UHD player, and one for the Oppo 980H DVD player.

No need to apologize for thinking you misled me -- that certainly wasn't the case. I do recall something similar happening when I went from a previous model that was similar but had a rechargeable battery (can't remember the model number, as it was a long time ago) to the 650. Fortunately, I still have all the channel icons saved to my PC, and I have all my customizations documented in an Excel spreadsheet, along with all my other home theater configuration settings for other components -- it's the IT person in me . It probably took me about 30-45 minutes to get everything setup on the new 665.

FYI, I have each activity customized so that they have similar functions assigned to the same soft buttons on the LCD screen across all activities. For example, the tray open/close button for all three disc players is assigned to the upper left button on the first LCD page, the right two buttons on page 1 are the INFO buttons for the TV and AVR, the second page is for the sound modes on the AVR, etc.

 

[Bob Cashill]

Related: My six-year-old Harmony Hub seems to have bricked, after turning my TV on and off by itself several times. I’ve tried all the troubleshooting tips and nada; the Home Screen is frozen. Is I that it? Do I get a new one given the lack of support or try some other device?

 

[Bob Cashill]

Related: My six-year-old Harmony Hub seems to have bricked, after turning my TV on and off by itself several times. I’ve tried all the troubleshooting tips and nada; the Home Screen is frozen. Is I that it? Do I get a new one given the lack of support or try some other device?

I just switched to the app, which I forgot I had. Maybe it’s a battery issue but that seemed to be ok. The TV turning on by itself, several times, freaked out my wife.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I just switched to the app, which I forgot I had. Maybe it’s a battery issue but that seemed to be ok. The TV turning on by itself, several times, freaked out my wife.

Did you reset your Hub?

 

[Bob Cashill]

I did and had the same issue.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I did and had the same issue.

Perhaps then the "nuclear" option is the next step which means taking everything back to the factory settings and reconfiguring everything.

 

[Eric_L]

A phone would be a poor replacement for a remote. Want to change the volume? Unlike your phone, navigate to an app, click volume up. Convenient!

Besides, I don’t want to be on my phone when I’m watching a movie.

Bad news for you - the phone is already well integrated into most viewing experiences. Most streaming devices work quite well with you phone, but even better - the phone is not the sole input device - at least not in my house. My house is all voice. Channel, volume, what streaming show to watch, all voice. As more and more products go wifi integrated there will be more and better ways to integrate voice commands to my theater. Fight it all you want, but the universal remote is going the way of the Sears Catalogue, the slide rule, and the window crank.

 

[Bob Cashill]

Perhaps then the "nuclear" option is the next step which means taking everything back to the factory settings and reconfiguring everything.

It turns out all the commands were plugged into the Harmony app on my phone and that’s what I’ve been using.

 

[Chewbabka]

Bad news for you - the phone is already well integrated into most viewing experiences. Most streaming devices work quite well with you phone, but even better - the phone is not the sole input device - at least not in my house. My house is all voice. Channel, volume, what streaming show to watch, all voice. As more and more products go wifi integrated there will be more and better ways to integrate voice commands to my theater. Fight it all you want, but the universal remote is going the way of the Sears Catalogue, the slide rule, and the window crank.

What’s a streaming device?

 

[B-ROLL]

What’s a streaming device?

?

 

[Eric_L]

What’s a streaming device?

Roku, AppleTV, Fire TV, Chromecast, etc

 

[Chewbabka]