Still struggling with TV on/off status in combination with Harmony Hub. I tell Echo for instance to turn on TV, when my wife switches it off with the native remote the Harmony activity is not notified. I am wondering if it is possible to make Chromecast sent a signal to Harmony.
So when chromecast has no power Harmony knows TV is off and vica versa. Any help or other suggestions are very welcome!
Yea, you need to ditch the oem remote, and just use the harmony one.
My chromecast are always on, that’s just the way they work. You can verify this using the Google home app.
I suppose you could plug the tv into a appliance module, have st monitor the power, then turn off the harmony tv activity when the power drops to the tvs idle state.
The chromecast do respond to hdmi cec commands, however harmony doesn’t understand them, so that’s not going to help in this case.
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Thanks Mike! Makes sense! No all in need to do is find a module for 230v sockets.
This guy is all you need. It works with Harmony Hub, is fully customizable, and will report Activity state through the Harmony Hub. This should be around the same price as, if not less than, a superfluous plug…with hella more practical functionality.
Oh…did I mention that it’s wife-friendly??? My wife loves it better than our old Harmony 650 remote, which is an awesome buy for the price, but doesn’t receive Activity state updates.
I actually use a smart outlet with my Chromecast and some other devices. Harmony Hub and Receiver are always powered, but depending on state of motion and Harmony activities, Chromecast will be off if nothing is playing and nobody is around. With it and a few other devices on that outlet I save around 60w of phantom power draw. Once motion kicks in, the outlet turns on. The good thing is I can start Harmony activities before going downstairs, and they still fire up, you just wait a few seconds for the Chromecast to boot when you get down there.
Then, in case the kids futz with stuff, I won’t allow the outlet to turn off until it’s down to the bare minimum power level of idle devices.
I only use Harmony/Alexa for remotes, no OEM remotes are accessible in my house. I hid them all from the family just to prevent this kind of confusion.
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Exactly. OEM remotes cause too much confusion. Even max 3x per year guests have learned to use my various Harmony remotes. The only problem I have with the Smart Control remote is that some Activities are hidden behind long-presses.
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Received the Harmony Smart Control 8-Device Universal Remote last week, should have ordered it a long time ago!! Thanks!
Nice. That thing has made my life less of a headache. My wife likes it alot better than our bigger Harmony remotes though.
So, I now have one problem with it. The Smart Home Companion remote has 6 additional buttons. 2 have light bulb icons, 2 have outlet icons and +/- buttons between them. Since Home Automation devices don’t count against the 8-device maximum, I’d then be able to control lighting outside of activities with the remote.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find the Smart Home Companion remote sold by itself.