Harmony Remotes - Programming

[Coleccionista]

BevHoward sent me this answer:

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Your question (and concern) seems to indicate that you are still
approaching the harmony as "device" centric rather than "activity centric"

You can have several devices in the same activity and pick and choose
which commands you want from each device... in the case of _all_ of the
media center devices, they are all from a common source and the problem
is that logitech doesn't have all of the media center commands in one place.

If the MCE keyboard does not have the commands you need, simply add the
SE to the same activity and map the additional keys you need from that
device...

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I understand the point of having 2 devices (MCE Keyboard and SE) My concern is that this does not look like a optimal solution.

Take for example the "powering on/off" when starting/leaving activity, with 2 devices Harmony may get confused since there's only 1 physical device responding to 2 separate logical devices.

Or all the delays settings that will get applied when sending commands from MCE and SE when in fact you only send commands to a single device.

I bellieve a easier, more straightforward solution would be to allow a device to "speak" more than one set of commands. As in this case my MediaCenter would recognize the SE set and the MCE set but Logitech software forces me to chose one or another or creating "phantom" devices for getting around these restrictions.

[bevhoward]

The media center devices should not allow the harmony to control them automatically.

Open each of the media center devices and change each power options to "does not have a power button"

In addition, when asked, select "no input" for the mce devices unless you want a specfic one (not clear how mce handles this)

Once this is done you can take the activity you want to include multiple mce devices in and use the setup review to then "add additional options" then add any and all devices you want to be able to control when that activity is running.

Since the power on the mce devices has been disabled, you can then simply assign hard and soft buttons to best meet your needs and no mce commands will be issued unless you press a button or add a specific action to the activity startup or shutdown.

hth,

Beverly Howard

[Coleccionista]

If I understand you right, Harmony would not control the power on/off of MCE so when I click on an Activity the computer won't start automatically.

I'd press "Media Center", and then map a button to actuall power-on the MC.

When I leave the activity also there won't be a power-off of the computer so I'd have to either map a button in the new activity to send a power-off to MCE or switch to Devices and send a power command.

I need to do some serious testing , hope to come back with what I learn.

EDIT: btw, someone may find interesting the use of the (rather cool) Windows 7 OSK (On-Screen Keyboard), if you pin it to the taskbar you can run it throug a Win+n shortcut and then you can type (urls/short sentences, emails/run commands/renaming files.....) pointing and clicking with your Harmony remote (as shown in post 2 of this thread). This could make also a nice fallback in case you are missing any key in your button setup.

EDIT2: I wasn't sure but now I have confirmed that key codes do change according to internacional settings. "Backslash" wasn`t working because in my setup (Spanish) returns a "ç", "Colon" returns a "ñ". One more thing to keep in mind.

[Coleccionista]

My experience in configuring Harmony One to control Windows 7 Media Center , XBMC (on Windows 7) and the computer in general (+ TV and Amp.) has almost concluded.

I have setup the remote to mostly do what I wanted it to do thanks to the insightful info on this thread and others, thanks BevHoward and PikeHarmony.

I have setup 3 different activities for my computer uses.

- W7 Media Center - Using the device  Windows Media Center SE

- XBMC - Using devices Windows Media Center SE and MCE Keyboard

- Computer - Using Windows Media Center SE and MCE Keyboard + the mouse config described in post 2 of this thread

Right now there's only one little thing that I miss. The remote can only wake up the system (from S3 sleep state) when I send the Power Toggle command.

Since the eHome IR receiver is active (it listens to power toggle) and allowed to wake up the system, why it's not waking up the system with any keypress??

My wireless usb mouse wakes up the system as soon as I move it.

[Vlip]

This message was posted in August. It is now near end of October and I just built a Windows 7 based Media Center PC and selected the device mentioned in the first post but I do not get the mappings for the "important commands missing". I would have expected them to have been added by now. I also like the recommendation of setting up the mouse to the "sound" or "picture" buttons. Why haven't these things been done to the device in the database or am I missing something? My most critical request is for the escape key.

[justin100]

Did anyone have success with 670 and this SE device?

I could not update my 670 remote as long as this Media Center SE device exists in the device list.

The update failed at 3% with message:

ASSERTION failed::Application-defined or object-defined error(1)Context: HarmonyRemote=Harmony050

It seems to be complaining about a model number 050, but the model I have is Harmony670.

As soon as I deleted the SE device, and changed to MCE keyboard, the update completed without any problem.

So does this device apply to certain models of harmony remotes only?

It seems I am not the only one who is having problem:

http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Harmony-Remote-General/Harmony-620-Can-t-update-with-latest-software-7...

I'd really like to use the mouse key functions, so please consider support for more models.

P.S. a support ticket has also been created.

[justin100]

I've tried all the suggested methods in FAQ, also tried deleting the cache folder. Nothing worked.

A possible cause was found here:

http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Harmony-Remotes-Programming/NEED-HELP-with-my-628-Please/m-p/386730

According to this tech support, "+" is not a supported character in the "older 600 series".

I wonder if  the "+" in many combo commands was causing the problem.

Is it possible to make a version in the database that does not use unsupported characters (use _ instead of +)?

Thanks.

[MarkDU]

Hi justin100,

The update error has been resolved on your account. It appears that the new set of codes for the WIndows Media Center may cause this error with an older Harmony 600 series remote due to special characters. I have forwarded this information back to the OP PikeHarmony for review. I believe that he will update us shortly.

Regards,

Mark

[justin100]

Hi Mark,

Thank you very much for your fast response.

I see those commands with "+" have been removed. Also removed were the mouse related keys.

Those keys (LeftClick, RightClick, MouseUp, MouseDown, etc.) did not seem to contain special characters, were they causing trouble too? (If not, I'd really like to keep them.)

I greatly appreciate your help.

Regards,

justin100

Edit: Thanks. I got your reply in PM. I will wait for Pike to update the commands. You guys are great!

[Pikeharmony]

The BUG with the 600 series update error has been resolved.

My apologies for any inconvenience this may have cause to harmony 600 series users.

Current 600 series users with the Windows Media Center SE version need to add the improved version.

See faq below

The Harmony software displays that there are updates available for my device. How do I add the updated version of my device?

http://logitech-en-emea.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/logitech_en_emea.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=12...