I’ve seen lots of complaints about how long the Harmony switches in ST take to update when using the physical remote to turn stuff on or off. Just found a really simple way to get instant state updates. Go back and add all of the ST switches to your Harmony hub as Home Control devices, then turn each corresponding one on when your activity starts and back off when it ends.
Bam, instant Harmony status updates.
Step by step below. This starts with the assumption that you’ve already added your Harmony hub(s) to SmartThings.
Open the Harmony app on your phone (as far as I’m aware, the phone app is the only way to add/edit Home Control devices)
If you have multiple hubs, connect to your target hub. These steps have to be repeated for each hub.
Add your SmartThings switches to Harmony as Home Control devices.
a. From the main screen in the app, tap the hamburger menu in the top left corner, then go to Harmony Setup -> Add/Edit Devices & Activities -> Devices
b. If you have not previously connected your SmartThings account to your Harmony hub (i.e. SmartThings doesn’t show as a Device), tap Add Device -> Home Control -> SmartThings -> Sign In
c. If you have previously connected your SmartThings account to your Harmony hub(i.e. SmartThings shows as a Device), tap on SmartThings -> Re-login
d. When prompted, log in to IDE, select your ST Hub from the drop-down, select the SmartThings switches that are associated to all of your Harmony activities, then tap Authorize at the bottom.
You should be taken back to the Harmony app, but if not, there’s a link on the screen that you can tap to re-open it. The Harmony app will spin for awhile, and if you’re lucky, will finish. If you’re like me, it never stops and I have to Force Stop the app, then relaunch and go back into Add/Edit Devices & Activities again. When looking at your Devices, you should see SmartThings listed, and if you tap on it again, you should get a list of Lights and Plugs. All of the SmartThings switches will be listed under Plugs. If they aren’t there, try tapping on Refresh.
Once all of the switches are showing, go back and edit your Activities. Harmony Setup -> Add/Edit Devices & Activities -> Activities.
a. Tap on your first activity, then go to Edit Start Sequence
b. Scroll to the bottom and tap on Edit Home Controls
c. Select the correct SmartThings switch for the activity, tap the next arrow at the top right
d. Check the box for the switch, select On (note - this will turn on the activity), tap next arrow, next arrow again
e. Tap on Edit End Sequence, Edit Home Controls
f. The correct ST switch should already be checked, tap next arrow. Check the box for the switch, set device state to Off (note - this will turn off the activity), tap next, next
g. Repeat step 5 for each of your activities
Example…this is the startup sequence for the Fire TV activity on my Living Room hub. I tied the ST Living Room Fire TV switch from ST back to the startup sequence in the Harmony hub.
Not that I’ve seen so far. Even if an activity received multiple on commands (which it doesn’t look like is happening), the second on command would have no effect.
Here’s a screenshot of one of my activities. I turned it on with ST, then off with ST, and then back on with the remote. No repeating commands.
Awesome tip! Now I can have ST automations based upon Harmony Status in realtime!
Also, something I never thought about before. My harmony physical remote restricts me to 6 activities BUT I can now add up to 4 more by associating the home control buttons with an ST harmony activity!
On an unrelated note, am I the only one that dreads using the harmony app to login to ST & add/change home control devices? Every time, it errors out on me and/or adds a 2nd ST listing in the device list. Seems to never go smooth…
Thanks for the guide. I tried setting this up and found two limitations.
Change device power status to “Keep this device on when switching Activities” for devices that have the same button on your original remote for On and Off.
Will not work for activities where you switch sources by toggle. Ex: My tv has two HDMI inputs that I can toggle. It does not have an individual button for each HDMI input.
This is a great suggestion! One thing I noticed, even after following the above steps, is that the “Harmony Hub” device itself did not update its currentActivity until the next refresh cycle, even if the switches were in sync. I wrote this simple webCoRE piston to force it to stay in sync:
Perhaps it will be of use to someone else as well.
A huge thank you! I almost called Logitech/Samsung about this latency problem. Using the two fixes above, status for the activity is now instant, and the Harmony Hub activity is also instant.
Anyone noticed a delay since monday. I have ST turn the lights behind my telly and its between instant since setting it up like the first post coming on before I even get picture but its like the hue to ST link has either died or delayed
I had to install MyHarmony desktop software (as instructed here) and add SmartThings manually (Manufacturer: SmartThings, Device Model Number: SmartThings).
I like what you have done and give it a try. I do have a question. I have ST and Harmony Hub. I wanted to know if there is a way to see the device POWER status? Is the TV (Device) POWERED ON or OFF? If I’m away from my home I want to be able to see if the kids left the TV, XBOX, etcc on and turn off. I could write a POWER off activity but I think all it does is simulate pressing the power button as if you were in front of TV. So knowing the Device Power Status in Smartthings would allow you to invoke a activity like turn off. Anyway feedback appreciated.
Thanks for the response so if I follow the procedure above I’ll get the actual activity status in SmartThings. So if an activities is done through hatmony app or from Alexa Samsung SmartThings will update the activity status as on or off. So there’s no way to tell the status if any one of the device is controlled by the Harmony Hub is manually turned on or off from the manufacturers remote thanks again for your response and feedback
Ha that’s great lol. But true, going to pick up harmony remote this weekend. Idea can zwave outlets show power draw? Thinking if I change out outlet behind t.v. to one u should be able to create a piston that shows when tv is on or off. Thoughts?
You don’t need to monitor the plug for your TV, you can monitor and act on the status of each Harmony activity in webCore, once you add the Harmony activities to webCore in Settings>Available devices and contacts>Available devices.
I have been making use of this and been working brilliantly until the past 2 days. It looks like there is a delay between harmony activating the activity and ST activating it again which in turn stops the activity. So, when I use the harmony remote, the activity comes on momentarily and then turns off. But when I use the ST app, it works fine. Anyone experiences this? I really would like this to work so I can just use the remote to start my activities. I tried re-logging in, adding the activity again, even resetting the ST hub with no luck.
Same as mine.
As I can see, when I start an activity from remote, it runs on, then off on Smartthings log, then I need to refresh the device to get the correct status.
