# Anyone Else Disappointed in their Harmony Ultimate?



## chrison600 (Oct 3, 2013)

Hi all,

I purchased a Harmony Ultimate a few days ago and have been having some real troubles getting it to program like I think it should. For example, by intent a TiVo should remain on 24 hours a day in order to capture content. The Harmony includes a TiVo On/Off trigger by default in a Watch TV "activity" and there doesn't seem to be a way to setup a Watch TV activity without this trigger.

Another example: I want to add an activity to simply change from AV1 to AV2 when the receiver is already turned on. When I try to add this activity, the Harmony, again by default, includes a receiver On/Off trigger and it cannot be removed. I realize that I can manually change the input from the Yamaha receiver device control area, but this requires 5 finger actions, vs one if I can implement it as an activity.

Isn't this supposed to be the "ultimate" remote control?

Chris


----------



## SeanC (Dec 30, 2003)

1. In MyHarmony - Click on Devices, Tivo, Change Device Settings, Power Settings and choose how you want it to work. I prefer on when switching activities and only off when off is pressed. This means it will be in suspend or sleep or whatever Tivo calls it and it will ignore emergency broadcast messages.

2. I don't quite follow what you are trying to do, but if it is turning off the receiver then that to me says the receiver is not part of that activity, add it to that activity, then the harmony will leave it on when you switch to it.


----------



## lebenson (Jan 27, 2008)

I have a Harmony Ultimate and also found the sleep mode annoying. I found an easy hack. I deleted Roamio as my device and replaced it with Premiere. Works great with the Roamio. Tivo never sleeps.


----------



## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

lebenson said:


> I have a Harmony Ultimate and also found the sleep mode annoying. I found an easy hack. I deleted Roamio as my device and replaced it with Premiere. Works great with the Roamio. Tivo never sleeps.


You could of also just done like was mentioned earlier and changed the power settings for the device. I just set mine to stay on all the time for the Roamio. Then it doesn't try to put it in standby.


----------



## TivoDoctor (Mar 8, 2003)

I have a Harmony Ultimate Home and it runs everything in my entertainment center well. It runs about 11 devices flawlessly. I think it is much better than the prior Harmony remotes. It does have a bit of a learning curve, but it is well worth it once it is all set up. I had the same problem you have when I set my remote up. You need to go in to the power settings of the Roamio in the Harmony setup and change the settings to leave the power on all of the time as stated above. You could probably put together an activity to change the inputs on your receiver without turning it on or off, but that will take a bit more effort customizing the settings of the activity. If you the hit the rectangle at the bottom left of the LCD screen during any activity, you can go to the individual device remotes and change the input of your receiver from there. You could then go back to the activity. Alternatively, you could program several buttons on the activities LCD screen with the input buttons from the receiver remote by ir learning, so you can change it from there. I hope that helps. Good Luck.


----------



## ej42137 (Feb 16, 2014)

chrison600 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I purchased a Harmony Ultimate a few days ago and have been having some real troubles getting it to program like I think it should. For example, by intent a TiVo should remain on 24 hours a day in order to capture content. The Harmony includes a TiVo On/Off trigger by default in a Watch TV "activity" and there doesn't seem to be a way to setup a Watch TV activity without this trigger.
> 
> ...


Implicit in your question seems to be an assumption that TiVo has a powered-off mode in which it will not record content; that is not the case. The only way to put a (properly functioning) TiVo in such a mode is to eliminate it's power source, for example by pulling the plug. Instead, TiVo has a standby mode which Logitech sometimes identifies as powered off. When it's in that standby mode it doesn't send out any video to your TV but it still records content as usual. It also doesn't respond to EWS signals so recordings in standby mode are protected from that interruption, which is a very good thing. The bottom line is that you probably do want your TiVo to be in stand-by mode when you're not watching it.

As to your other question, I don't have the same Logitech remote as you, but to change receiver selections I have found it more appropriate to program a button to change inputs rather than set up an activity. Logitech remotes assume things are turned off when you start an activity if you aren't switching from another activity, so it's not possible to get it to leave the power-on stop out of an activity. But perhaps I don't understand what it is you are trying to do.


----------



## jasonjordan (Jun 23, 2014)

I have found that ever since I got my full home theater properly setup with my new TV, new Receiver, and new TiVo Roamio, my Harmony Ultimate sits totally unused. Frankly, I'm embarrassed that I didn't think about it a little more before I bought it. The TiVo remote control does everything I need for now.


----------



## chrison600 (Oct 3, 2013)

jasonjordan said:


> The TiVo remote control does everything I need for now.


Does your receiver sit out where the TiVo remote can send it IR signals? Mine is in a cabinet behind the seating area.

Does TiVo make an accessory that's a RF receiver that sends IR signals, similarly to the Harmony Hub?

Chris


----------



## TivoDoctor (Mar 8, 2003)

The Roamio remote can control a Roamio in a cabinet because it is an RF remote, but it can not control any other devices inside the cabinet. You can buy an IR repeater that will retransmit the signal from a receiver outside the cabinet to emitters inside the cabinet. I have one made by Harmony, but there are less expensive ones made by other manufacturers. You can search Amazon for IR repeater. A Tivo remote certainly will run a TV, a receiver, and a Roamio just fine. The Harmony Ultimate is made to run a complex home theater setup with multiple devices and activities. It is designed to make running a complex setup easy. The Harmony Hub sends out powerful signals that can control my TV and soundbar as well as my Roku 3 and my receiver which sit on top of a cabinet below the TV. The hub sits on top of the receiver and controls all of those devices. The hub has two IR emitters that are taped above the right and left shelves of the cabinet and control all the devices in the cabinet. These emitters are very powerful and control everything well.


----------



## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

I don't have a Harmony Ultimate, but I do have and use a lesser Harmony remote.
I will say their online programming is still the most frustrating exercise I have ever gone through. 
Yes, it used to be worse than it currently is...

To get what I wanted involved using the I.R. learn mode and the original equipment remotes.
However, once you do get the Harmony setup, it's hard to find a better electronics remote, especially if you like tactile buttons vs touch screen control.


----------



## hollisterny (Jan 29, 2015)

You should look into a setup with an Ipad mini and Roomie remote...it is beautiful.


----------



## tomhorsley (Jul 22, 2010)

The harmony setup process has possibly improved about 10% since I got my first harmony many years ago: http://home.comcast.net/~tomhorsley/hardware/harmony/harmony.html I do like the thing once I finish wrestling with getting it setup though (I have another one now that is somewhat newer).


----------



## randymac88 (Feb 29, 2004)

I have a Harmony Ultimate setup and it definitely performs a lot of complicated tasks quickly and easily. It also plays nice with the wife - it simplifies things quite well and because of that factor alone, I've been able to add a lot of complicated but cool stuff to our system.

My only issues:

- I find the responsiveness is not close to being as good as with the old Peanut remote. I've messed with all of the settings and button delays and repeaters, and it just isn't as satisfying. But I deal with it. 

- in the afternoons we get a ton of sunlight through the windows and it projects right onto the TV and receiver. For some reason, this messes with the signal and often times the signal just won't work. It's weird and annoying but again, I deal with it.


----------



## JosephB (Nov 19, 2010)

chrison600 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I purchased a Harmony Ultimate a few days ago and have been having some real troubles getting it to program like I think it should. For example, by intent a TiVo should remain on 24 hours a day in order to capture content. The Harmony includes a TiVo On/Off trigger by default in a Watch TV "activity" and there doesn't seem to be a way to setup a Watch TV activity without this trigger.


Don't worry about it. Your TiVo will record even when "off". When "off" is sent, it puts it in standby mode which just turns off the video outputs. It still records when in standby mode. You're fine to keep the on/off command in your Harmony activity.

Do keep in mind that the latest update to Roamio has power save options that affect if it will record suggestions in standby. You may or may not have this update. However, it will *always* record scheduled recordings from standby.


----------



## Ashton (Dec 3, 2014)

hollisterny said:


> You should look into a setup with an Ipad mini and Roomie remote...it is beautiful.


Agreed.

I've had Harmonys for many years and I've hardly used my Harmony since getting Roomie.

Roomie is what Harmony should have become.


----------



## dcline414 (May 1, 2014)

lebenson said:


> I have a Harmony Ultimate and also found the sleep mode annoying. I found an easy hack. I deleted Roamio as my device and replaced it with Premiere. Works great with the Roamio. Tivo never sleeps.


Wowjust realized I did this by accident. Never changed the setup of the Harmony Ultimate when we replaced our Premiere with a Roamio because everything functioned perfectly.

Is there anything else that will behave differently whenever we do update the settings to a Roamio instead of Premiere?


----------



## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

As another option to Harmony, which I quite like in conjunction with the slim no frills remote for Wife, the TiVo Slide power button can be mapped to three things. It's pretty solid for simple setups and I have it toggle my TV and 5.1 surround stuff simultaneously for example.


----------

