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Recommended Harmony device


Chris!

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Hi all,

Whilst FLIRC is great and will work with a lot of remotes, some use strange IR settings.

Currently users of harmony remotes (many models) have issue with microsoft mce setting for harmony remote when used with flirc due to issues:

Currently i'm recommending the plex plex player setting however I was wondering if we should settle on something else or even ask for a setting on harmony as Jason seems to know the different types of input flirc can handle - that way any IR command would be certified to work with FLIRC

Anyone else have any views on this?

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ok! i found a working combination here!

it might shed some light for new users!!

FLIRC + HARMONY 650

to have your harmony remote work without issues with your FLIRC dongle,

i commend you to stay away from adding Microsoft devices to your harmony remote!!

instead, do as follow,,,

as device, you can add example --> SAMSUNG LN46C650L1F (doesnt matter if you have this model or not)

then, edit your buttons this way using the installed version of the HArmony Software

BTL2Hs.png

once done, fire'up FLIRC's GUI, select FULL KEYBOARD mode for your mapping, and walla!!

Enjoy a stress free HARMONY 650 + FLIRC configuration!!

FLIRC + HARMONY 300i

Now if you own a HARMONY 300i remote,

of course, use myharmony.com to setup your buttons first,

and dont go crazy here, the point is simply to assign an action to buttons on your remote,,

which one it is and where i could care less!

its simply to not leave a button un'asssigned becuz if u do,

that button wont be map'able using FLIRC's GUI!

and also, make sure to not assign the same action twice!!

use different ones on each buttons!

so again, once done,

fire'up FLIRC's GUI, select FULL KEYBOARD mode for your mapping, and walla!!

Enjoy a stress free HARMONY 300i + FLIRC configuration!!

i think we should sticky that somewhere!!

:)

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Good work eskro.

The only problem I can see is if people have a samsung tv it will edit the tv and flirc. (both me and my brother have a samsung tv - manufactured 4 years apart and the remotes can control one another for every function (other than new buttons))

I think i may look into how to add devices/submit devices - just to see what is entailed.

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farewell, but point is,

just add a profile of a device you dont have in your HTPC setup,

and as the author JASON suggested,

i too, strongly suggest you add a TV profile,

example either a Panasonic TC-P65VT30 or SAMSUNG LN46C650L1F!!

i tested both of these TV profile and they work %100!!

No repeat key issues and if you hold down left or right arrow, it'll scroll fast!!

then using the HARMONY software or MyHarmony.com

just make sure to not leave buttons un'asssigned on which ever profile you use becuz if u do,

those un'assigned buttons wont be map'able using FLIRC's GUI!

So dont go crazy here, the point is simply to assign actions to buttons on your remote,,

which action it is and on which buttons its assigned FLIRC doesnt care!

Like i said, your official map'ing will be done using FLIRC's GUI anyways!

and also, make sure to not assign the same action twice here!!

So use different actions for each buttons!

this will prevent the famous 'Button already exists' error from showing up

when you'll configure your harmony using FLIRC's GUI!

give it a shoti!

:)

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I am using the Plex profile which has 60+ possible assignements. We really want to find one that works well with flirc and has the max number possible of buttons I guess, so that people can programme as many 'additional buttons' in the harmony as they need...

Actually, are you saying with the above that if you hold down keys you get repeats? I.e. you can scroll a long list of movies by just hoding the down arrow? I thought flirc didn't support key repeats yet?

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ok! i found a working combination here!

it might shed some light for new users!!

FLIRC + HARMONY 650

to have your harmony remote work without issues with your FLIRC dongle,

i commend you to stay away from adding Microsoft devices to your harmony remote!!

instead, do as follow,,,

as device, you can add example --> SAMSUNG LN46C650L1F (doesnt matter if you have this model or not)

then, edit your buttons this way using the installed version of the HArmony Software

BTL2Hs.png

once done, fire'up FLIRC's GUI, select FULL KEYBOARD mode for your mapping, and walla!!

Enjoy a stress free HARMONY 650 + FLIRC configuration!!

FLIRC + HARMONY 300i

Now if you own a HARMONY 300i remote,

of course, use myharmony.com to setup your buttons first,

and dont go crazy here, the point is simply to assign an action to buttons on your remote,,

which one it is and where i could care less!

its simply to not leave a button un'asssigned becuz if u do,

that button wont be map'able using FLIRC's GUI!

and also, make sure to not assign the same action twice!!

use different ones on each buttons!

so again, once done,

fire'up FLIRC's GUI, select FULL KEYBOARD mode for your mapping, and walla!!

Enjoy a stress free HARMONY 300i + FLIRC configuration!!

i think we should sticky that somewhere!!

:)

Thanks I might have to give this a try but only after I try a remote I just purchased and will be arriving today. If I do try it I'll let you know the results.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've only came across this thread after I finished setting it all up but I would like to add my findings that worked for me best with scrolling / auto repeat and low latency repeated key presses (pressing an arrow key repeatedly) (after testing 5 different remotes I had laying around).

My universal remote is Harmony 700 which is basically pretty much the same as 650 / 600.

The remote that I cloned successfully was the SKYPlus SKY-HD Box (profile in Logitech's database). I recently recycled the satellite received but kept the remote. I used it to first program FLIRC with it and then try to replicate the behaviour on the Harmony remote.

I was well impressed with the response time of the Sky+ remote as everything was incredibly snappy. This particular remote has plenty of mappable buttons as standard but if for some reason you need extra commands and have the physical Sky+ remote, you can program the TV part of if to offer you another set of usable IR Commands.

There was one particular setting on the Harmony remote which is not obvious to find and which affects the way the remote sends repeated commands. By default the Harmony profile sends the original IR signal + 3 repetitions to make sure the device gets at least one of them and responds correctly. This is causing a slight lag when quickly pressing an arrow key to advance through menus or scroll the library one-by-one.

The solution is to set the harmony's repetitions to 0, in addition to inter-key delay = 0. This is done counter-intuitively through the Troubleshooter in the Harmony Software as described on post #6 on this thread.

http://www.remotecen...ad.cgi?2621,1#6

The result is almost perfect, with almost 0 lag on repeated key presses, ultra smooth high speed scrolling and plenty of usable IR commands.

Perhaps I should mention that I've done all the programming and testing on my iMac running XBMC and Flirc software. After all the setting up, I unplugged the Flirc dongle and insert it into the Media PC which is running Linux and was working 100% correct with absolutely no configuration / software required on the Linux machine.

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Perhaps I should mention that I've done all the programming and testing on my iMac running XBMC and Flirc software. After all the setting up, I unplugged the Flirc dongle and insert it into the Media PC which is running Linux and was working 100% correct with absolutely no configuration / software required on the Linux machine.

Nice findings, flirc does all the sorting of signals and turns them into keyboard presses so it would work on any devixe that accepts a usb keyboard. The host device only sees it as a keyboard

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It's just that when setting up "activities" for the harmony remote, things go a lot more smoothly if the device type is actually similar to the actual functionality of the device. For example, if I set up an activity for watching XBMC media with a Panasonic TV as the device type, the software wants to know what input the Panasonic TV needs to be on to do this. My xbmc box has no inputs of course... so I have to assign it some input and then remember to not assign that function to anything important for the actual xbmc box.

Ideally, there should be a generic XBMC device in the Harmony database. Short of that, it would be nice if someone had the time to find a media center device already in the database that worked well. If I ever had the time I'd do it, but I don't.... :P

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  • 1 month later...

with the myharmony.com site, i can't seem to change any options in the activities. i can reassign buttons, but, i cannot find any additional settings for which devices power on/etc. i used to be able to do this with the older harmony software, but, that software doesn't work anymore.

i only have 2 devices that i use, my tv and my receiver. i have both of those in the activity along with the samsung tv to send commands to flirc. but i do not know if it is sending a power on/off command to the samsung tv device, or will it automatically send power toggle command to any device listed in the activity?

what i want to accomplish is set the power toggle to put my htpc asleep and wake. so when i hit the activity, it sends a power toggle command for the samsung tv to flirc to either wake or sleep the htpc when my other devices power on/off.

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  • 2 months later...

Hi, I've been playing with this a bit, using the Panasonic TV as a device. Has anyone else noticed that it sends a power toggle rather than a power on or off? It seems like that's happening for me.

For anyone else doing this, I recommend using a spreadsheet to keep track of your changes as you program it, because it can get confusing. I made one with 5 columns:

1. The actual button on the Harmony remote

2. The command sent to the nonexistent Panasonic or Samsung TV, or a device you have

3. The command executed by Flirc or other device

4. The result of the command, as in, what is accomplished by the button press

5. Whether the command is the default for the software or not, and what the default was if it's not (helps keep track of changes I may have to make)

In column 3 for instance, many of the entries will be keyboard keys "pressed" by Flirc, but things like volume and mute target the receiver and are labeled as such.

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  • 2 months later...

It's just that when setting up "activities" for the harmony remote, things go a lot more smoothly if the device type is actually similar to the actual functionality of the device. For example, if I set up an activity for watching XBMC media with a Panasonic TV as the device type, the software wants to know what input the Panasonic TV needs to be on to do this. My xbmc box has no inputs of course... so I have to assign it some input and then remember to not assign that function to anything important for the actual xbmc box.

Ideally, there should be a generic XBMC device in the Harmony database. Short of that, it would be nice if someone had the time to find a media center device already in the database that worked well. If I ever had the time I'd do it, but I don't.... :P

I just got my FLIRC.

Any new information about this idea?

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Hi Godzilla, welcome to the forums.

In answer to your question, no. I think everyone's been quite happy using the panasonic preset. Though I would like to look into it in the coming months so thanks for reminding me.I'll post any progress I make.

Hope you're enjoying your Flirc

Pleasant regards

Chris!

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Sorry, I could be missing something here, but this solution doesn't work, for a simple reason: it means you can't have 'Watch my videos' or 'Listen to music' in your activities (and thus the single-hit macro buttons at the top of the 650). That's because the truly dreadful Harmony software won't set up an activity unless you've defined a suitable device. So when I try to define 'Watch my videos', it doesn't want to use a television remote control as the device; instead it prompts you to select or define an device that can play DVDs.

Has no one else experienced this? Or am I the only person who uses the macros?

Regards to all, and thanks to Jason for a terrific product!

Discy

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