Newbie, am probably missing something obvious

[nobbynobs]

Hi all, 

I recently picked up a v2 Flirc with the intention of using it with a Harmony 650 to control a FireTV, primarily for an instance of Kodi, but ideally to extend the usage to other apps on the FireTV (Netflix etc.) and to navigate around the FireTV gui.

From what I've read, this is a pretty straightforward process, but for some reason I'm either missing something obvious during the setup, or something isn't working as expected as I can't get the FireTV to react to any keypress on the Harmony.  

I've jumped around a fair bit during trying to get this working, but essentially my steps involved running the Flirc GUI on PC, whereby it recognized the Flirc device and did an initial firmware update.  I selected FireTV as the controller profile and pretty much did no more with the GUI as at the time I'd not yet configured the Harmony remote. I also read that there's no need to pair when using a Harmony, so figured there wasn't anything else needed on the Flirc side to configure.

I added a new Flirc / Fire TV device in the Harmony application and performed a sync.  I kept it simple and created no activities for the moment as I just wanted to prove the process was working.

Installed Flirc into the usb port on FireTV and on the Harmony remote, selected the Flirc / FireTV device I'd created.

At this point I'd expect the FireTV to react to Harmony remote keypresses.  Admittedly I was uncertain as to whether the FireTV at the home screen would recognize the keypresses or whether only when in Kodi. I loaded Kodi which also did not recognize any keypress.

I'm confident the Harmony remote is fine as it's worked ok with other devices in the past.  So my main question is whether I'm missing something obvious in terms of the workflow to set this up, or whether at this point it should be working in which case I can start to consider that perhaps some piece of the hardware not working as expected.

 

 

[jason]

Better documentation is on it's way.

This is all you need to do:

1. Fire up harmony, and add the manufacturer Flirc, and device firetv to your harmony

You don't need my software, I worked with harmony to add built in support. But since you already paired something, plug it in, fire up the Flirc GUI, and format the device. That's it. Plug it into your harmony, the codes are in Read only memory on flirc.

[nobbynobs]

Jason, many thanks for the quick reply.

So I'm on the right track in that case as I've done just that in the MyHarmony application.  Inserted Flirc into the FireTV, selected that device on the remote and yet no response to my key presses.  In which case I'm inclined to wonder in the USB port is functioning as from what I gather from your advice, the Harmony / Flirc at that point would be sufficiently configured to let me use the harmony to navigate the FireTV gui and presumably Kodi too?

 

[jason]

Yes that's correct. Make sure Adb debugging is off in your firetv settings

[nobbynobs]

Ahh, it's on, that much I know as months ago I altered the default sleep settings.  I'm curious as to why Adb state matters?  All the same, will disable and re-test.  Thanks!

UPDATE: yup, that was it.  Turned off Adb (and USB debugging which now makes more sense as to why Adb state matters) and boom, it works perfectly.

Thank you for all your help, now I can finish configuring everything.

Edited March 4, 2017 by nobbynobs

[jason]

That's so you can load Kodi on it. It disables regular USB and I think turns into some proprietary jtag interface.

[Prodeje79]

I am running the same setup (v2 Flirc, AFTV, and Harmony 650).  Do you experience any delay or lag or missed button presses?

The original AFTV remote is extremely responsive.  Has someone found a fix?  I've found numerous older threads and even a kbase on Flirc Zendesk (https://support.flirc.tv/hc/en-us/articles/203081659-Individual-keypresses-feel-slow-laggy-) .  If definitely sounds like it is Logitech's fault, but I am still wondering if there is a fix now.

I've also seen some posts talking about changing delay.  Another issue is that it appears my remote must use the old legacy harmony software.  When attempting to use the new version I get a serial number error.

You stated that it works perfectly, so that caught my eye. Thanks!