Harmony Remotes

[brexor]

Hey, I have a Velleman IR volume control unit (http://www.vellemanusa.com/us/enu/product/view/product.asp?id=521414) and was wondering if anyone had any info on what I can do to get my Harmony 700 to talk to it.

FYI I got the item from a buddy that wanted to use it for his computer, which is where he watches movies but couldn't find a universal remote that worked with it. I have the 700 and have used it for other stuff in my home, and would like (more my wife actually) to be able to controll the volume of several things thorugh the use of this one unit.

thanks!

[brexor]

bump

[hhatkin]

To be clear, didn't he get the remote control with it?

[brexor]

Negative. The kit allows the user to assemble and use ANY Velleman universal remote (which is like $50) by itself, but does not include it. I wish there was a general-use remote so that I could train my 700, but it doesn't...and I was hoping to get around slapping that much money down, and then putting it in a junk drawer.

[brexor]

re-bump

[no1knows]

any progress on this? I'm in a similar situation!

[fxdunigan]

Yes it will work great.

I bought and assembled the kit, but also purchased the K8049 remote control kit to train my Harmony 1100.

I set it up as a "Velleman Amplifier."

The only thing I'm not sure about is how you can program yours.  Supposedly the Logitech compatibility database is popluated by users, so I would expect the volume up, volume down and mute functions to be there now, but I don't even see the MK164 device in their list yet.

If anybody knows how I can share these codes from my Velleman remote, let me know and I'll do it.

[boomius]

I just bought the Velleman Mk164 (pre-assembled from http://www.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm/MK164) in order to hook up my Audioengine A2's to my Samsung TV which lacked a variable audio out option.  Works great with the Harmony 650.  I didn't actually but the Velleman remote but just added the Velleman K8049 as a device and found that the PowerToggle command worked for Volume Down and the Light2 command was Volume Up.  Unfortunately out of the 16 commands, none worked for mute. I'll update if I find a solution.

I added the Velleman as a device on the various activities where i wanted it to control the volume and then customized the volume buttons to control the Velleman and not the Samsung. The only hiccup here was that the harmony won't let you use the standard "listen to music" activity with the Velleman since it doesn't list the device as an audio device, but rather a remote light switch.  I just created a custom activity labeled "Listen to Music" instead and that works.  Other than those issues it works great.

My suggestions to Logitech would be that they actually add the MK164 to their database as an audio amplifier and that they work with Velleman to set by default the volume up/ down and mute commands.  This would make the whole thing a lot easier and require way less user customization.

I took this option because I had already dropped $200 bucks on the amazing A2s for a previous set up and with the new one I still didn't need anymore power than that for the room.  In the end adding the velleman and the harmony cost about $150, which is about $300 - $500 less than replacing the speakers and getting a home theater amplifier.  Also this set up doesn't take up much space if thats a concern. 

As a side note, Audioengine just released new A5s which now have a built in remote.  If you are starting from scratch that may be easier then using the velleman, assuming that logitech adds the A5s to their database.

[dosnav]

Many thanks to boomius for your post!  I bought the Mk164 as well and then the Harmony 650 to control it.  It wasn't until I found your post though that I was able to make the two work.

As for the mute button problem, I just figured it out.

To get the mute button to work, you're going to have to input the IR code into your remote.  Here is the code you will need to do it:

F9092P02BFS1E30P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1E30P02BFS1444P02BFS1E30P02BFS1E30P02BFS1E30P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1E30P02BFS1444P02BFS1E30P02BFS1E30P02BFS1E30P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1444P02BFS1E30P02BFS1444P02BFS1E30P02BFS1E30

 Log in to your account on members.harmonyremote.com, then go to THIS link.

After loading the page, click on the link to "Select an active device" and then select the remote control you'd like to add it to.  Click on the "Manual>" button.  In the "IrSequence" text box, paste the code above and click on the "Process>" button.  The code should process and give you a new page showing you the signal visualized in carrier/space timings.  Give the resulting code a name in the "Name:" text box (i.e. "mute") and click the "Add>" button.  A page should display saying "Command added successfully."

You can now add the command to your activities off of that device.

An interesting side note:

If you've never used the 'mute' setting on the Mk164, it actually resets the volume to zero instead of simply cutting the signal on the device temporarily.  Pushing the 'mute' button again then brings the volume all the way back up from zero to the pre-mute condition.

For those who are interested, here are the raw Pronto codes:

Volume Up:
0000 0071 0001 000C 0000 07FC 001A 011E 001A 00BF 001A 00BF 001A 00BF 001A 011E 001A 011E 001A 00BF 001A 00BF 001A 00BF 001A 011E 001A 011E 001A 07FC

Volume Down:
0000 0071 0000 000C 001B 011E 001B 00BF 001B 00BF 001B 00BF 001B 011E 001B 011E 001B 00BF 001B 00BF 001B 00BF 001B 011E 001B 00BF 001B 07FC

Mute:
0000 0070 0000 000B 001A 011E 001A 00C0 001A 00C0 001A 00C0 001A 00C0 001A 00C0 001A 00C0 001A 011E 001A 00C0 001A 011E 001A 011E

 Thanks to mdavej for posting the links for adding the code.