Just got my Harmony Ultimate Home kit a few weeks ago.
I want to add an outlet on my theater setup to power all my devices that have a lot of idle phantom power draw.
But I can’t seem to find a way to turn that outlet on before Harmony tries to turn everything else on. It’s like the smarthome commands always run last.
If I try to re-arrange them in the Android app to put my outlet on command at the top, it yells at my “Power-on and home-control commands can only be rearranged within themselves”, then it drops it to the end of the list where it was.
I’ve tried re-creating multiple activities, but it’s always the same.
I’ve tried the Harmony setup on the computer, but it can’t handle home commands. Says to use the mobile app for that.
It’s a good question, but it is one which has been asked and answered in the forums several times before. Did you do a search for “harmony delay”? You should’ve found several threads.
The short answer is that you can either daisy chain it by having one activity which starts the plug and then a minute later another activity which has your other devices in it. Or you can use webcore to issue two commands in a row. Same idea, just a little bit different way of doing it.
I am not feeling well today, so please do your own search and if then you cannot find the answer, hopefully someone else will be able to help you.
I searched on every possible keyword I could think of except delay.
So the general gist I’m getting is, I can do what I want but it takes some work arounds due to Logitech’s half baked product? (I’ve been a disgruntled Harmony remote user since the early days.)
Without much reading I can envision how one activity starts another. Not very clean though. Sometimes we will switch activities (say watch Roku, and then watch Tivo but without turning all devices off and then back on).
I’m assuming the Webcore method would be to have an activity trigger a piston that turns the outlet on, then tells harmony to start the requested activity.
I opened a support ticket with them and finally got a reply. It was along the lines of, we know, and we’ve brought it up to the product team for review.
Then they recommended making a post about it in the harmony forum about it too so they see it there.
I built a piston to simulate what you are doing, and it works if I use ST to start the activity.
If I start the activity from the Harmony remote, ST doesn’t update to show the activity is “On” unless I hit the refresh button in ST. (So obviously webcore doesn’t know the activity is “On” either).
Troubleshoot
In the Harmony App, start an activity.
In the ST App, see how long it takes for the activity to register in ST.
webCoRE receives updates from ST, from my experience, almost instantly.
However, from my experience, it can sometimes take a minute for a Harmony App activity to register in the ST App if started from the remote or Harmony.
Solution
The cool thing is you can actually use the Harmony App to start the Harmony Activity in ST by using the SmartHome Device Section.
In other words, create the activity in the Harmony App (Watch Fire TV), then in the ST App, select that Activity to be a “Switch” (Watch Fire TV [Harmony Activity]) in ST. Now in the Harmony App, create another Activity. This time, instead of using the actual “Activity”, use the SmartHome Device “Switch” (Watch Fire TV [Harmony Activity]). This should make it all work out for you. Name the ST Activity appropriately so you don’t get confused when you are in the Harmony App.
Even Better
Honestly, I start most of my activities by voice or by SmartTiles.
To be clear, the method described is really not a Virtual Switch as the Harmony Activities comes up as Actual Switches in SmartThings. These switches are accessible in the Harmony App just as your other SmartHome devices.
So creating an Activity in Harmony creates a Switch in ST. You can create another Activity in the Harmony App to Turn On/Off most SmartThings switches…
I’m actually using the remote, to tell ST to start the activity. I was thinking along the lines of creating a virtual switch for webcore to subscribe to and use a “fake activity” with it. That’s too much clutter.
On a side note, I just got an email today from Logitech stating the tech has confirmed with the product team that re-ordering home controls is on the roadmap. I’ll believe it when I see it.
