RGB light strip with Harmony Remote, problem turning ON

Devices & Integrations
1

I’m not sure if this is a Smartthings or Harmony issue, but I’m starting here. Maybe someone can help either way.

I recently picked up the Sylvania Smart+ RGBW light strip (Zigbee) for my TV backlighting. Paired and works as expected with Smartthings app.

I have a Harmony Companion remote, which is connected with Smartthings via the SmartApp so I can control lights with Harmony activities.

I added the light strip to my Harmony devices because I want to have the backlighting go ON and OFF with Harmony activities, just like I already do with other lights. However, I’m finding that when an activity is turned ON, the light strip does not turn on light like it should.

When the occurs, I can go into the Smartthings app and see that the light strip is indeed ON, but I just have no light. Not until I tap the brightness bar will the light strip actually light up. It’s like Smartthings is receiving the ON command correctly from Harmony, but is missing a command to set the brightness? I’m not really sure how it works. When I just turn the strip ON and OFF through Smartthings, I never have to touch the brightness, so this behavior is odd.

With the Harmony activity ON and the light strip actually lit up (after fixing with Smartthings app), Harmony will successfully turn OFF the strip when ending the activity as expected.

Any ideas? Thanks!

EDIT
I checked the device log in Smartthings, and when Harmony attempts to turn on the light strip I get this log:
“Logitech Harmony (Connect) sent setLevel command to TV Backlight”

So maybe “setLevel” is the wrong command?

2

I am doing the exact same thing . Only i have Hue Strip lights. In SmartThings (not classic) i have an automation that runs every day if its between 5pm and 11:59PM and if my Harmony Remote Scene that turns the TV is ON. Then I run a scene that sets up my TV lights the way I want them.

Hope this helps.

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Thanks for the reply. I was thinking that might be the answer, to let Smartthings control the light instead of Harmony. I am still using the classic app. I’ll give it a shot!

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@jfattizzi, I attempted to use a Smartthings with a scene to turn on the backlighting but I’m not having any luck. Basically just made two scenes, Backlight ON and Backlight OFF. Then two routines, one for each scene. The routines activate whatever scene depending if one of the Harmony virtual switch turns ON or OFF.

The problem I’m seeing if that the Harmony virtual switches do not update right away when turning activities ON/OFF via the Harmony app. For example, I turn on my “Watch Fire TV” activity with Harmony and the virtual switch in Smartthings remains in the OFF state. A couple minutes later I’ll see the switch state change to ON. So essentially the Smartthings routine to turn backlighting ON is delayed.

Any ideas?

Another potential issue that I was thinking might come up is when switching activities with Harmony. From what I’ve gathered, when you switch from one activity to another, Harmony turns off the current activity before turning on the new activity. So the backlighting might go off for a second before coming back on with the new activity. Not sure if that’s true but just a thought I had. I want the backlighting to remain on essentially whenever the TV is on.

5

I have just purchased and setup the Sylvania RGBW strip and did the same things as @jstluise. Mine works (almost) perfectly. I have a harmony hub with elite remote. I have added the lights to turn on and off with two activities. However, if I switch between those two activities, it will usually turn off the strip and not turn it back on. Looking at the “Recently” in classic app, it shows that the Harmony sent a “setLevel” command and then it turns off. Not sure if it went off because of Harmony or not–the reason I say this is, I see other times where it actually has an event that says Harmony Connect sent off (or on) command. Any ideas?

@jstluise, when I set up the command in the activity, I could set the level of the light–did you have that option? That’s sounds like what you might be missing.

6

Hi @brenthaag, I don’t recall being able to set the level. I’ll have to check again.

I did find a solution to my problem.

One caveat is that I can’t let Harmony turn off the light. Otherwise, when switching activities you’ll get conflicting commands and sometimes end up with the lights off. So I just have Harmony turn on the lights, and then added the lights to my “good night” routine in Smartthings. The lights don’t go off when you only turn the TV off but that hasn’t been a big deal (the old non-smart lights were on 24/7).

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