What the heck are those Harmony idiots doing?

[silkshadow]

They are runing a good product with incompetence! Everytime those idiots change the webapp it makes things worse. I used to love my Harmony remotes. Now I am starting to lothe them . Its been a while since I had to update anything on my remote but tonight I had to change some things.

So I click the "change buttons for this activity" link and all my custom buttons are messed up. I had them in a really nice order which took me like 3 tries and alot of time to do originally. An order, by the way, which I have memorized. Fine, it sucks but I will live. So I re-arrange them back to where they were and then I make the changes I need to. Hit done. I sync my remote and, not only are all the buttons messed up but the dumb webapp added 4 buttons I don't want! I go back in and re-do it *again*. This time I go back after I hit done to make sure my changes stuck. They didn't. Worse yet, the dumb buttons that they added last time came back! I have now done it 6 times and everytime its the same. I just wrote Logitech an angry email.

The thing that ticks me off the most is that I bought these remotes because they were entirely customizable and good for tweaking. What they are doing now is saying that the webapp is smarter than their customer and forcing buttons on me that it thinks I need. I mean how insulting is that? Its like I am a two-year old that doesn't know my own home theater setup.

Anyway, caution to anyone thinking of buying a Harmony remote.

1) The webapp thinks you are a moron.
2) Logitech thinks you are a moron
3) The webapp gets worse and worse. It doesn't get better.

[m1abrams]

You know I use to be a Harmony remote lover too, however I am on my third remote from them and not sure I will buy a fourth. My reason is not for the webapp, but because of build quality.

1st remote died after about 1.5 years of use for no apparent reason, remote was only ever used by me and never dropped.

2nd remote arrived dead

3rd remote has been working for over a year, however within a few months the battery compartment cover broke and has to be held in place with tape. Reason for it breaking is that the piece that holds it ALL together is a piece of plastic as thin as paper. A co-worker of mine has the same remote and has a similiar complaint.

Now when it comes time to replace it, not sure who I will go with. Cause the one feature Harmony remotes have that I have not seen in other remotes is device STATE memory. Which is very useful for devices without discrete codes.

[Blue]

Originally Posted by m1abrams

1st remote died after about 1.5 years of use for no apparent reason, remote was only ever used by me and never dropped.

My wife got pissed at me one night and decided to throw my Niveus remote against the wall. It broke into 4 pieces. Fortunately it all snapped back together, and is still kicking. So, the build quality is good, but unfortunately it doesn't have the functionality of a Harmony.

[Kanati]

Get yourself a marantz and you'll never go back.

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by Kanati

Get yourself a marantz and you'll never go back.

If you are referring to the Pronto type remote, I have had one and Hated it. Touchscreen interfaces are not good remotes IMHO.

Do the Marantz support STATE memory? I know the pronto I had did not, and at the time Marantz and Prontos where basically the same thing. Not sure how it is now.

[Kanati]

Not sure. I have a RC5200 and love it. Well... I love it's configurability. I do wish it had more hard buttons and less of a touchscreen though. But overall I like it a LOT more than I liked my Harmony 659.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by m1abrams

If you are referring to the Pronto type remote, I have had one and Hated it. Touchscreen interfaces are not good remotes IMHO.

Do the Marantz support STATE memory? I know the pronto I had did not, and at the time Marantz and Prontos where basically the same thing. Not sure how it is now.

I agree, I've got a Pronto sitting on the end table in the living room. I charge the battery up once in a while, but never use it. Not enough hard buttons, you can't "feel" where the buttons are on the LCD screen in the dark.

Anybody want to make me an offer on a very slightly used Pronto TS-1000 with Charger? How about a Sony RM-AV2000? You can check out reviews for them on Remote Central. I keep meaning to put them up on Ebay, but never seem to get around to it.

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

I agree, I've got a Pronto sitting on the end table in the living room. I charge the battery up once in a while, but never use it. Not enough hard buttons, you can't "feel" where the buttons are on the LCD screen in the dark.

Anybody want to make me an offer on a very slightly used Pronto TS-1000 with Charger? How about a Sony RM-AV2000? You can check out reviews for them on Remote Central. I keep meaning to put them up on Ebay, but never seem to get around to it.

You would be surprised what you can get for that on ebay. I sold my TS-1000 about a year ago no charger, I got ~$140. Just don't link back to this thread

[Kanati]

I've got a sony rm-av2000 too... didn't care for that one all that much.

[silkshadow]

I had a series of prontos before. I hated it and loved it. It just didn't feel like a remote and I was constantly paranoid about the screen. The lack of hard buttons stunk though. I went throught three Prontos because they kept breaking. Philipps was very good with fixing/sending me a new one though. However the software was great and it was really tweakable.

The Harmony was supposed to solve all those issues. I've not had any problems with my Harmonyies contruction. I have several 6-9 year old nieces and nephews who come over all the time after school, with their yayas (you would call them opairs (sp?)), to watch cartoons. So far no breaks but I am using 680s.

Fact is, if the remotes are shoddy and the software sucks so bad, the moral of this thread is find an alternative to the Harmony remotes .

[pengdahl]

I used to use a Pronto, but didn't like having to go through it's menus all the time and the lack of state memory. In my current setup I use a USB/UIRT with girder and a hauppauge 45-button remote. I have girder setup to control all my devices either via the UIRT or via serial control. Girder can be programmed to know about device states. In fact, I have it set up to change functionality based on the app that I'm running or the device that I'm controlling. I've even got two different remotes set up to work simultaneously. It works very well, and the WAF is pretty good. The biggest negative is that it's pretty time consuming to program, and when I install a new device or program it can sometimes be difficult to find the remote codes. I think it is the best possible solution in the long run, though.

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by pengdahl

I used to use a Pronto, but didn't like having to go through it's menus all the time and the lack of state memory. In my current setup I use a USB/UIRT with girder and a hauppauge 45-button remote. I have girder setup to control all my devices either via the UIRT or via serial control. Girder can be programmed to know about device states. In fact, I have it set up to change functionality based on the app that I'm running or the device that I'm controlling. I've even got two different remotes set up to work simultaneously. It works very well, and the WAF is pretty good. The biggest negative is that it's pretty time consuming to program, and when I install a new device or program it can sometimes be difficult to find the remote codes. I think it is the best possible solution in the long run, though.

That is pretty cool, I did not think about using Girder to send IR commands to other devices. So basically you let Girder do all the smarts for you based on the code it sees. How bad is the delay from time remote is pressed to time device sees the command.

I should look into Girder and see if I can reduce my need of the Harmony. Cause as far as I know the Harmony is the only remote under $1K that has state memory. Your solution any $2 remote becomes a very powerful remote.

P.S. I have a Denon reciever that has a serial port, however not sure if I can use it to control it. -- I check the Girder forums and they have an ini just for my reciever the 3805. sweet

[pengdahl]

I have no/very little delay, especially with serial control. I am using serial control for my Denon receiver and it works great. My version of girder doesn't support two-way communication for serial, but I don't need it for my application. When using the UIRT, it's important to send the IR commands using IR blasters hooked into the port on the back of the unit. You can use the UIRT's blaster, but in my experience it's a little less reliable and sometimes the incoming IR from the remote will interfere with the blaster.

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by pengdahl

When using the UIRT, it's important to send the IR commands using IR blasters hooked into the port on the back of the unit. You can use the UIRT's blaster, but in my experience it's a little less reliable and sometimes the incoming IR from the remote will interfere with the blaster.

That may be an issue for me then, since I am using the IR out the back for zone control of 2 digital cable STBs. I would HAVE to use the builtin IR blaster for controlling things.

[pengdahl]

Originally Posted by m1abrams

That may be an issue for me then, since I am using the IR out the back for zone control of 2 digital cable STBs. I would HAVE to use the builtin IR blaster for controlling things.

The built-in blaster does work - and only some devices will have a problem with it. However, you can hook up more than just two zone controllers - you can get ir mice that split into two, and the "z" version of the UIRT supports up to three zones, so you could theoretically control six devices with zone control. In my setup I've got two devices controlled with ir mice and two controlled with serial.

I should mention the only other issue I've run into with this setup - you can't use a remote control that controls one of your devices or you'll get duplicate signals going to that device. Of course you could put some tape over the receiver on the device, or if the remote can learn, you can have it learn other settings. Pretty obvious I guess, but it deserves mentioning.