Harmony Remotes Being Discontinued?

[Evil_Attorney]

Looks like Logitech might be discontinuing production of their Harmony remotes. Time to buy a backup?

[drewg]

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

Looks like Logitech might be discontinuing production of their Harmony remotes. Time to buy a backup?

Argh. The worst part about this is that if they shut down their backend for the configuration tool, many (all?) existing harmony's will be locked into whatever configuration they currently have..

Drew

[Evil_Attorney]

Originally Posted by drewg

Argh. The worst part about this is that if they shut down their backend for the configuration tool, many (all?) existing harmony's will be locked into whatever configuration they currently have..

Drew

Crap, I forgot about that. So maybe buying a backup is a bad idea.

[nyplayer]

I guess my myharmony will go away. .. no way to set remotes in the future if this happens. Good thing I went with universal WR7 remotes a while ago and my harmony has been gathering dust.

[Evil_Attorney]

What are the alternatives to the Harmony remotes? Looking around, there doesn't seem to be a popular alternative. It looks like Philips has a line of similar remotes, such as this one.

[Fuzzy]

PC Clients win again.. :-) With Girder, and a USB-UIRT, I can use any remote I can find for any remote.

[reggie14]

This is disappointing to hear, although I kind of suspect Logitech will find a buyer for the Harmony line. It seems like there must be a market there. Almost everyone I know with a moderate to high-end universal remote has a Harmony.

Like Evil_Attorney, I'm wondering what the alternatives are. The big draw to Harmony remotes was the stateful activity-based macros. Turning on my TV, AVR, and Sage box, and setting things to the inputs, only takes one click. Switching from the Sage box to the Roku only takes one click. I don't know what other remote could duplicate that functionality.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I guess my myharmony will go away. .. no way to set remotes in the future if this happens. Good thing I went with universal WR7 remotes a while ago and my harmony has been gathering dust.

Hopefully somebody will hack the setup. There is already concordance, which you can use to save/restore the remote configuration (but not edit it). Once myharmony goes away, I hope somebody figures out the configuration format..

I looked at the WR7 (and the URC-R40) and they sound primitive compared to the Harmony. How well do they work? Can you customize buttons (like swap ffwd & skip)?

Drew

[Fuzzy]

I currently, and have for 8 years, use a Home Theater Master MX-500. It is a learning remote that is completely programmable from just the built-in LCD display. It's not as 'easy' as a harmony to set up, but it can be made to work with anything IR based. It supports some macro functionality, and has multi-pages of menus possible. I don't use most of it's 'features', but I find it has a great layout for use with sage (or any HTPC setup for that matter).

[jchiso]

I control just about all of my setups with cheap, JP1-enabled remotes. I just received two today (for $20 each) and uploaded the configuration for my media room. There's a bit of a learning curve, and hardware acquisition required, but the flexibility and functionality cannot be beat ...

[reggie14]

Well again, for me it comes down to duplicating the stateful, activity-based macros that you can create with the Harmony remotes. I know a lot of people here rave about the URC remotes, but I could never get a straight answer on whether or not I could (reasonably easily) reproduce that functionality with those remotes.

Basically, if I have SageTV running my TV, and I want to switch to my Roku, I want the remote to know that the TV and my AVR are already on, so it shouldn't send a power toggle command (since my AVR doesn't have a discrete on command). All it needs to do is change the AVR input and return off the Sage extender.

[alfi33]

Originally Posted by jchiso

I control just about all of my setups with cheap, JP1-enabled remotes. I just received two today (for $20 each) and uploaded the configuration for my media room. There's a bit of a learning curve, and hardware acquisition required, but the flexibility and functionality cannot be beat ...

+1
I've never understood why JP1 remotes aren't more popular around here. Cheap and super powerful.

jchiso, which remotes did you get? I've been using the URC-8820s for the last few years.

[Evil_Attorney]

I agree with Reggie, I need a remote that can turn on/off everything based on an activity (watch TV, xbox, bluray player, computer). Otherwise, the wife/kid/babysitters won't be able to use the TV and/or will mess my system up. The Harmony remotes were great for the non-techies of the household.

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by alfi33

+1
I've never understood why JP1 remotes aren't more popular around here. Cheap and super powerful.

jchiso, which remotes did you get? I've been using the URC-8820s for the last few years.

I got two of the backlit Insignia remotes. I already had one backlit and two non-backlit versions of this remote.

To answer some of the questions about configurability, these remotes support macros, so you could produce startup/shutdown/activity -based setups. Just about all IR-based devices have discrete Power On and Power Off commands; even if they are not built-in to their factory remotes. There are several online communities that discover, share and post codes to use with remotes such as the JP1-enabled models described above ...

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by drewg

Hopefully somebody will hack the setup. There is already concordance, which you can use to save/restore the remote configuration (but not edit it). Once myharmony goes away, I hope somebody figures out the configuration format..

I looked at the WR7 (and the URC-R40) and they sound primitive compared to the Harmony. How well do they work? Can you customize buttons (like swap ffwd & skip)?

Drew

Quite the opposite. You can do anything with the Universal remotes. Think of button presses or series of button presses as a macro instead of an actual button. With that logic a macro can be a single button press such as FF or multi step such as turn on TV, wait 2 sec, switch input on tv, turn on surround sound receiver, turn on sagetv. There is no limitation.

I started with the Harmony's and went up the line from the 550 to the 880 and the One and was never 100% happy until I bought a URC remote.

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

I agree with Reggie, I need a remote that can turn on/off everything based on an activity (watch TV, xbox, bluray player, computer). Otherwise, the wife/kid/babysitters won't be able to use the TV and/or will mess my system up. The Harmony remotes were great for the non-techies of the household.

Take a look at the Univeral Remotes. I will warn that if you are coming from the harmony camp that they are much more difficult to setup. They aren't really meant to be sold to the end user and are meant for installers to sell to you. However, since we sagetv guys are generally pretty techie and DIY oriented this is not really an issue.

I have an MX450, at the time it was the highest in the line that did not need the installer software to program which they don't sell to end users (it can be had on ebay now). It is an RF capable remote but also will do IR which at the time no harmony remote did both. This was important to me because I didn't want an IR blaster taped to the front of the flat screen that was mounted on the wall.

To address the point about the family, once I got this all setup the wife said this was her favorite and easiest to use. I was asked to not change remotes from this one despite my urge to upgrade.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Well again, for me it comes down to duplicating the stateful, activity-based macros that you can create with the Harmony remotes. I know a lot of people here rave about the URC remotes, but I could never get a straight answer on whether or not I could (reasonably easily) reproduce that functionality with those remotes.

Basically, if I have SageTV running my TV, and I want to switch to my Roku, I want the remote to know that the TV and my AVR are already on, so it shouldn't send a power toggle command (since my AVR doesn't have a discrete on command). All it needs to do is change the AVR input and return off the Sage extender.

I can only speak for my MX-500 remote (pre-URC). But it has 10 different 'modes'. Each one gives a different set of codes per button, plus 2 pages of named buttons on the screen. Simply pressing a mode button will just put it in that mode, but longpressing that button will start a macro (that you could use for power/source functions). Same thing for System On and System Off buttons, they each fire a macro. At teh end of the macro, the remote can be left in a particular mode.

That said, because I use my sage client for just about everything, I programmed everything into a single mode, and use girder to handle my power and state controls.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

PC Clients win again.. :-) With Girder, and a USB-UIRT, I can use any remote I can find for any remote.

+1 to that. I use a dead simple WMC remote and have eventghost control everything. I push power, the projector and receiver turn on. Power again, both go off. If an input needs to be changed you select it in sage and it's changed. Simple.

[Evil_Attorney]

Ok, according to this article Logitech is looking to sell their Harmony division, not shut it down. That's good news.

[darcilicious]

Originally Posted by Peter_h

I started with the Harmony's and went up the line from the 550 to the 880 and the One and was never 100% happy until I bought a URC remote.

Now that's interesting. We have several non-HTPC devices connected to our primary TV and I have really liked the 550 we have. Simple to set up and use.

I'll have to file this away just in case...

[sumrtym]

I think I smell another opportunity for Google....

Their tablet control may be nice for their fiber project, but doesn't keep you from needing multiple remotes if you have an AVR, blu-ray player, etc. They should give you a Harmony AND tablet!