Logitech Harmony Integration

(Tim Johnson) #1

I am a budding “Smartthinger”, and am slowly but surely getting the hang of things…

I currently have a Harmony One Remote in my main TV room, which I know will not be integrated with ST. ( I have “Smarthinged” the lighting in the room, however…)

Here are the rooms/Zones I need to control

Main TV Room (Smart TV, Cable Box, XBOX1< WII-U, Smart Blu-Ray Player, Pioneer Receiver) Currently Harmony One Remote
Master Bedroom (Smart TV, Receiver, Smart Blu-Ray, AppleTV, Cable TV). Currently Harmony Smart Remote
Onkyo Reciever with Sonos Connect for Music in our Living Room (not the TV room) and our Deck… Currently another Harmony Smart Remote…
(I purchased the Onkyo Receiver (the only simple stereo receiver I could find with a digital optical input for the Sonos to connect to) with the intention of using Speakers “A” for the Living Room and “B” for the deck… Well, the A,B,A+B speaker selector switch can’t be controlled with a remote, it’s a mechanical switch… ughh… as a result, I may purchase another receiver in order to have independent remote control of the two music zones…)

I will be adding a dedicated Home Theater over the summer. Projector, Motorized Screen, Blu - Ray, Cable, Etc… This equipment will be in the same rack that the receivers for the Living Room and Deck will be in …

I know I need to replace the Harmony One with at least one Harmony Home Hub/Remote…and have a few questions…

Will the more basic Smart Remote Hubs communicate with the Home Hub, and, in turn be controlled via Smarttings? If not, do I need to buy several “Home” Remotes/Hubs?

Also, for the Living Room/Deck Zones, Is it possible to use one Home hub, and direct specific commands to specific IR emitter jacks (since the receivers would be identical), or would I need to re-purpose the Smart Remote from the Master BR and use a new Home Hub there as well?

I hope this isn’t too confusing…

Basically, I will have 3 stacks of audio/video equipment in 3 areas…

I know i could just by a couple of additional Smart Remote Hubs and control them fairly well from the Harmony App on my iPhones/iPads, but I would prefer to integrate with ST…

PS… Logitech has a sale on their Harmony Devices ($30 - $50 off through 4/25/20015)

Oh, and their entire support page is down… can’t search on any subject on the Logitech site right now…

(Scott G) #2

First a couple of notes about the Harmony-ST integration. 1) It’s currently not working as intended. Harmony can talk to ST, but ST cannot send commands to Harmony. You still get a lot of functionality. You can add lights to your activies, so the lights dim when you Play Movie. You can use virtual switches as workarounds for a lot of other functionality too. 2) Harmony only provides control of Activities to ST, so you can use ST to trigger an activity, but not really send individual commands. I use this (my functionality fully works because it was set up before it broke) for a couple of things like using ST to trigger a sleep timer and turn off the bedroom TV. I have been able to use duplicate Harmony activities to have a switch that pauses a movie and brings the lights up, then dims then again and resumes; but it’s clunky and cumbersome.

The Smart Remotes/Hubs will need a firmware update to work with the Home Control features and integrate with ST. That update was long promised and may never come, so you will probably need new Home Hubs for anything you want to integrate. The way it currently works, I think you would need one Home Hub for each “Zone” even if some of the equipment is housed in the same space. The problem is that the Harmony system can only be in one activity at a time, so you can’t use one hub to control multiple zones. The other issue is the one I mentioned above. ST will not be able to fully control your devices, just start/stop activities.

(Tim Johnson) #3

Thanks, Scott, (@sticks18) …

I ran across Roomie Remote, which really intrigued me.
First, they indicate that they work with ST (i haven’t been able to see how well, yet).
Also, the IR Emitter gizmos have discreet ports so I could control the Onkyo Receivers independently. Each Blaster has multiple ports, and costs 80 - 100 bucks Some even can be powered via POE ethernet, and I have a POE switch… I could rework the whole house for the price of 1 Harmony Ultimate Home…

Also, they plan an Android Version, too. I have a couple of Nook Color tablets and can install the full Android Tablet OS on a micro-SD, making them full functioning android tablets (maybe a bit slow, but just using as ST remotes), which could replace the desktop remote that comes with the Harmony Home…

Any thoughts?

Tim

(Scott G) #4

I think Roomie would be a better fit for what you’re trying to do. Much more flexible. I haven’t used it myself, but there’s at least one person on here that swears by it. Try searching for Roomie. Here’s a comment from someone who works for/with Roomie about how they maintain the integration with ST and have it fully functional.