Harmony Hub Help - Device always on

I know this is not a smart things question but as a lot of you have the harmony hub i thought i will ask.

I have my Home Theater system set in the watch TV activity. The TV activity turns on my power plug (Which of course is kinda last in the activity) Therefor my home theater system doesn’t turn on.

Now if the activity ends and the power goes of while the Home Theater System is on, when the activity turns on the Home Theater already comes on as on. (Hope that makes sense so far)

So i thought if i switch the Home Theater System to Always on on the home hub it would leave it on. But when the activity ends its still turning it off.

I have synced it all.

Anyone have any ideas?

I’m confused what’s the point in the power plug in this??

You cannot do what you are trying to do within the harmony activity. I have given up and left the power plug tied to ST modes so when I am home or awake the power plug for the entertainment system is on. While this is not ideal it is the simplest for my situation.

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Great thank you. The only thing i would like to use the harmony control to turn on everything.

Im on the harmony hub forum as well and they said to try “this device has no power” So giving that a try tonight and also they said try on the pc software as that has more options then the app so im looking there as well.

https://support.myharmony.com/en-us/changing-when-a-device-powers-on-or-off

Heres the page where it says you can change it to leave on.

I would like to use the remote so when i push activity the power comes on.

I’m not sure why this isn’t working within harmony itself, there are many different ways that devices can be configured.

But you could certainly set up a daisy chain sequence within SmartThings that would solve this for you.

You would need two separate activities, one that only turns on the power plug and then one that does everything with your actual home theater equipment, but that doesn’t itself turn on the power plug .

Then you would also need a virtual switch.

Now you’re going to set up a daisy chain sequence that looks like this:

  1. push a button on the remote that starts a harmony activity that does nothing except turn on the virtual switch. You will set up the virtual switch as a virtual timer which will turn itself off again in one minute.

Two) set up a SmartThings sequence so that the virtual switch coming on turns on The TV power plug. You want this plug to be invisible to harmony. It’s just a SmartThings plug which you will turn on and off with smartthings.

Three) when the virtual timer turns itself off, Have SmartThings tell Harmony to turn on the activity that has all of the home theater equipment in it.

The biggest issue with this is that there will be a one minute delay before the home theater comes on. That will work in some households, but not others, but it does mean that you can control the sequence of everything, it’s just that you’re controlling it through SmartThings rather than through harmony. The key is not to tell Harmony about the smart plug at all. Just use the SmartThings/harmony interface to handle sequence

Here’s a how to article on setting up a virtual timer.

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_create_a_virtual_timer_for_a_light

Worked it out. Simple fix.

I had turned CEC off on my TV but not Home Theter system. Turned that off and hey presto everything working.

Happy Stuart. Thank you for your advice anyway.

Stuart

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you can use Core Piston and set the Off Delay by seconds, works perfect.

Stuart, whats CEC?

Consumer Electronics Control or CEC. It links various devices through the HDMI. So if you turn on the TV on the remote the home theater would turn on and if you turn TV of the same applies. This is done though the HDMI. The same can apply with just changing inputs. For example. Change the input on the TV to PlayStation input that would turn the PlayStation on. Hope all that makes sense.

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Glad you got it worked out. May I ask what device is the “Home Theater System”? Why does it need a power plug to turn on/off?

Its my surround sound system.

It doesn’t have a remote?

I did but i was changing it all to harmony. Anyway i dont have it anymore. Upgraded everything to sonos