FAQ: Help with Logitech Harmony (Connect) and Triggers (SmartThings Classic)

Hello,

New user switching over from Vera. Go most everything back up except my Hub. I’ve installed the app, signed in and the hub is found. I select my hub, click next and nothing happens. I’m pushed back to the last screen. Under “things” I can see the hub and it will show me the current activity, but that’s it. IS this normal? Do you not get any control of activities and/or devices. Maybe I;m expecting too much.

Thanks

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clicking the textname of the Thing is not the same as clicking the ON/OFF status of the Thing. Try it.

Sorry eric… not following that.

The official harmony/smartthings integration actually has three separate parts.

One) using the harmony app, you can go in and add specific SmartThings-controlled control devices to the list of connected home devices in harmony. Then you will be able to add those devices to your existing harmony activities. This is also how you set up a button on the harmony home remote to toggle one of your SmartThings-controlled lights, for example. The harmony documentation gives a pretty good explanation of how to do all this.

Two) using the SmartThings app, you can add a harmony hub as a “thing” on your smartthings network. This does nothing more than find the hub on your local Wi-Fi, give it a name, and assign it to one of the “rooms” in your smart things mobile app. It doesn’t actually let you set up for doing anything with your end devices.

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/205653834-How-to-connect-the-Logitech-Harmony-Home-Hub

Once you have finished this step, your harmony app will show up on your things list in the Rooms view, and the “harmony connect” smartapp will show up on your smartapp list in the Rooms view. I named my Livingroom hub “Central.”

  1. ( I think this is the step you still need to do) now you need to install a completely separate smartapp, called “Logitech Harmony trigger.” Then you will use that as a set up wizard to allow you to associate SmartThings-controlled devices as triggers for harmony activities. This is how you turn on your TV with a motion sensor, or toggle a switch and have The DVD player start.

After you have added a trigger, you then have to refresh the harmony hub in the Rooms view things list, and then that specific trigger will show up on the smartapp list in the rooms view. This is nonintuitive, and I tend to forget every time where it is. But once It does show up on your installed SmartApps list in the Rooms view, you will be able to either use that trigger manually or with any of the various schedule and mode rules that you included in the wizard for it.

You will have to install a new instance of the harmony trigger smartapp from the Marketplace for each individual trigger that you want. You do get a nice set of options in the trigger set up wizard, everything from the arrival sensor to time of day.

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/205653864

To find the triggers smartapp, Start by going to Marketplace, Then scroll down to More and select that.

You should then be able to find the “Logitech Harmony trigger” smartapp. Install it.

(Note: For some people, this will be called “Harmony control.” I’m not sure who gets which name, but it does the same thing and you will have one or the other. Just use the one that appears in your marketplace. Note that this is “control”, not “connect”. )

The set up wizard will give you a lot of choices. Just make whatever selections you want.

Once you have defined the rule parameters for the SmartThings-controlled devices, you will select the specific activity to be triggered:

Finally, you can name this particular trigger at the very end of the wizard. I named mine “Halt Roku activity.”

After you have installed it from marketplace, you need to get the list of installed smartapps to refresh. I usually choose the hub from the Things List under the rooms view and refresh the hub there, but I’m not sure you have to do that. You might just be able to close the phone app and reopen it.

Eventually, the trigger will show up in the list of installed smartapps in the rooms view. Mine is called “halt Roku activity.” Noticed that it has a little play button on the right side of the screen. That’s to use it manually on demand.

So eventually, you will end up with multiple installed smart apps in the Rooms View: one “harmony connect” smartapp (this just connects the hub to your network), and one instance of the harmony trigger smart app for each trigger that you set up (these show up under the name you gave the trigger at the end of the set up wizard each time).

To add a new trigger, go back into marketplace, smartapps, more, and choose the “Logitech Harmony trigger” SmartApp. (For some accounts, this may be named “Harmony Control.” ) Again, you may have to do something to get the list of installed smartapps under rooms view to refresh so you can see the name of the new trigger, but it does get created once you’re done with the set up wizard in the marketplace section.

It all seems to work well for me, it’s just a confusing set up.

Summary

  1. Harmony → ST
    Use the Harmony mobile app to add SmartThings-controlled devices to Harmony activities, or to assign SmartThings-controlled devices to
    Harmony Home remote buttons.

  2. Use the SmartThings mobile app to install the “Harmony Connect” smartapp to assign the Harmony Hub to a Room at your SmartThings location.

  3. ST → Harmony
    Use the SmartThings mobile app to install one instance of the “Logitech Harmony Trigger” smartapp (or Harmony Control smartapp if that’s the one you have) to allow a SmartThings-controlled device like a contact sensor or switch to trigger a specific Harmony activity.

Two Troubleshooting Notes

A) Everything was working great, and I didn’t change anything, but now my television keeps changing activities by itself .

Every so often, usually on a day when Harmony is just about to update their mobile app, everything goes bonkers for about an hour and a lot of commands get sent twice. This can really mess up the harmony/SmartThings integration.

My guess, and it’s purely a guess, is that when there’s a pending firmware update for some reason some of the activities get duplicated while the firmware check is going on.

If your TV seems to be going on and off randomly, or randomly switching from one activity to another, no matter which specific integrations you’re using, I suspect this is the problem. If so, it will clear itself up fairly quickly without you doing anything at all. If there is a pending update, accepting that update may clear up the problem, but not always.

There are reports of this on other forums that have nothing to do with SmartThings, so I’m pretty sure it’s a harmony update issue. Annoying, but temporary.

B) SmartThings won’t discover my Harmony Hub(s) to begin with.

See the following thread (this is a clickable link):

C) Everything was set up and working and now the activities won’t trigger. The log shows the activity request being sent, but the Harmony hub doesn’t blink and the activity doesn’t fire. The activity works fine if triggered from harmony app or from the physical remote.

Some users have “Logitech Harmony trigger” smart app replaced during a platform update by a new “harmony control” smartapp. (Not “Harmony Connect.”)

When this happens, everything is set up the same way except you may have been logged out of your harmony account from the SmartThings integration.

Go to rooms view, and choose SmartApps.

Find the “harmony control” smartapp (not “harmony connect”) and open it

Reenter your harmony log-in credentials and save the smartapp.

This should re-establish the connection and your triggers should work again.

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This rocks!!! Thanks so much. I’m out to dinner but will go through this as soon as I get home!!!

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I forgot to mention, once you have an individual trigger listed in the smartapps list under the rooms view, there are two places to click on it. I think this is what Eric was referring to.

If you click on the name of the trigger, you will open up the setup wizard again, and you’ll be able to change the rules that you have for that trigger.

If you just click on the little play arrow on the right it doesn’t Open up the set up wizard, it just manually initiates that trigger.

But from what I was reading, you hadn’t yet gone through the steps to set up the trigger in the first place, which is why his post was confusing for you.

Perfect info… Thanks so much! Got it working. Thanks again.

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One more question… can an activity be added to a routines?

A switch going on can be added to a routine. And then you can have that switch going on be the trigger for the activity.

If you use a virtual switch, then it’s easy. The virtual switch is used only for triggering the activity. :sunglasses:

Thanks again. I’ll search out virtual switches.

Ok… think I got this. Now I can create a virtual Switch for any activity I want to control,

Thanks again

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Now can someone tell me the difference between “Only When Mode is…” and “set for speicific mode(s)?”

My activity is to trigger music when i get home. So I have it trigger on System change mode to “home”

So If I set “Only When Mode is” to “Away”… will it only trigger when ST goes from Away to Home?

The reason I’m asking is that My Day/Night mode switches to Home at sunrise. I’m hoping to avoid music blaring at 6am.

No, I don’t think that will work. Because after the mode change to Home that would trigger the Harmony activity, then the mode is no longer Away, so if the smart app was restricted to Away, then I think the trigger wouldn’t fire.

However, I think you could restrict the time range on the next page of the smart app setup if you can pick a good range for your habits.

So the smart app would be “When” … “System Changes Mode” to “Home”, then restrict it to like 12pm to 12am or something on the next page. It wouldn’t fire when your hub changes to the Home mode at 6am, but it would fire if you came home any time between the time range you set.

EDIT: Oh, I also just noticed that a trigger can be “Arrival Of” a selection of presence sensors. So you don’t need to use a mode change at all. You could have it trigger only on your presence sensor.

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I just sent this into Support, but checking here in case anyone has a suggestion and since support is already a day or two “late” on responding to a separate emailed issue. Thanks!

I’ve added a SmartApp via a ST template called Logitech Harmony (Connect). Unfortunately I did this BEFORE adding the Harmony Hub as a Thing and I now appears stuck in a bug.

When I click on Logitech Harmony (Connect) underneath Marketplace / My Apps it does not do anything except to create an instance under Rooms / SmartApps. Unfortunately I clicked that apparently 6 times trying to get it to respond, because I now have 6 instances of Logitech Harmony (Connect) within Rooms / SmartApps. When I click an instance, I get the spinning circle for a second and that disappears. There is no way way to delete these. Help!

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Next question… does anyone have to Harmony Hubs setup and connected to ST? The Harmony Smart Control in the bedroom is not being found. I’m almost sure I have the latest firmware installed. It’s the older model, no screen on the remote. Maybe it’s not compatible with ST?

Thanks

According to the blog:

Only the Harmony Home Hub, the Harmony Home Control, or the Harmony Ultimate Home works with the smartthings hub.

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Bummer… not sure I want to upgrade that one yet. Maybe the next time they do a $100 trade in deal.

Thanks

Hope Im in the right spot. Tried and am not able to integrate. I have the V2 hub and latest firmware and software for my Harmony Home hub and ST. I have static IP on both hubs. I have deleted, rebooted and reinstalled multiple times with no resolution. I am able to add ST via the Harmony app as a device and authorize all thru the web API. ST devices show up on the Harmony app. I then go to the ST app and I see the Harmony smart app associated with my virtual switch. I go thru the connect process to access the Harmony activities but get an unexpected error or not authorized error message. Anything Im doing wrong. IFTTT is so unreliable and useless.

Do you have a US account or UK account?

There is a problem authorizing any UK third party services right now, it affects Harmony as well as IFTTT.

US…when I add the Harmony hub ST won’t recognize it…I get an unexpected error message. I’ll send a screenshot.