# Any advice for a new Harmony remote user?



## Mark W (Dec 6, 2001)

Hi folks,

I have a very modest "home theater" in the basement that I have been using a old Radio Shack 1994 remote for. I struggled through the JP1 route to get it mostly where I wanted it. Some people think JP1 is so easy, and actually enjoy it, for me, it was a chore. I'm not a tinkerer.

Anyway, as many times as I tell the family hit 1s to watch a movie, etc, I thought having a simpler remote for them would be nice, so when the Harmony 628 recently went to $35 on Amazon, I jumped on it. I'm hoping it will now be truly as easy as saying "Press the Watch Movie button". I have not received it yet, but I wanted some advice for those that have them on how to program it. I know you program it through their web site. I was reading somewhere that people suggested going through the wizards to set up the first component, but then do the others manually? Do you folks recommend that? Is there any site/thread someone can point me to that I should read?

I have the following equipment:

Infocus 4805 projector
HDTivo
Zenith upconverting DVD player
Panasonic VCR (hardly ever used)
Sharp 27" TV
Pioneer VSX-811 receiver


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

I too ordered the 628 from Amazon. I've read that basic programming using Logitech website is a bit slow and clunky, but does work. If you need to do more sophisticated functions it can get tedious. I'm hoping it won't be as tedious as the jp1 route for my RS 15-1995 remote.

This site has a lot of info.
http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin/mboard/rc-harmony/list.cgi


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## Mark W (Dec 6, 2001)

Jim, thanks, it sounds like from that thread that the harmony software does not automatically populate functions to the LCD Buttons? 

I am just noticing that there is no menu button on the 628? Looks like I'm going to need to add , List, Jump Back, info, exit, and skip to the LCD buttons.


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## cheer (Nov 13, 2005)

Actually, the Harmony does indeed automatically populate functions to the LCD buttons, particularly if it has no dedicated button for a particular function. And I find programming it from the website very easy.

The drawback I would mention, however, is true custom macro-esque programming isn't possible. Yes, you can learn buttons that the remote doesn't automatically learn (though the only time I've ever had to use that was when I set it up for multiple Tivos -- and then it just had to learn one of the buttons to adjust to the different Tivo remote code). Yes, you can tell it to send a certain command or two when initiating an activity or the like.

But I wanted to code a custom "mute" function that would turn closed captioning on. I don't have a "CC" button -- there are a couple of menus on the TV (analog) or Tivo (digital) that have to be navigated, and there's no real way for me to program the various commands required.

Small drawback, however. This Harmony has freakin' saved my marriage.


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## eddiwill (May 13, 2002)

Another great thing about the Harmony is the customer service/tech support. 

A while back, I spent close to an hour talking to a tech, telling him what I wanted to achieve and then we ran several variations until it was just how I wanted it. They are helpful in the extreme when you call.

I've called/emailed a handful of times over the past 2 years and always come away very happy.


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## Mark W (Dec 6, 2001)

Can anyone else share how they used their LCD Buttons for Tivo? My plan for them with the 628, from the upper right button working clockwise would be LiveTV, Info, Skip, Jump Back, List, Menu.

I would also imagine assigning the Slow function to the Stop button, and clear to the +* button.

Using these matches the peanut most closely.

Another question, I have read that in the LCD you can either have the Activity Display in the top line with four keys or have it not display and use the Six keys. This is not an all or nothing, right? You can have 6 keys for Watch TV, and 4 for Watch a Movie, right?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

cheer said:


> But I wanted to code a custom "mute" function that would turn closed captioning on. I don't have a "CC" button -- there are a couple of menus on the TV (analog) or Tivo (digital) that have to be navigated, and there's no real way for me to program the various commands required.


Actually this is quite possible. The only drawback is that if when you enter the menu you aren't at the same starting point each time. That way any up/down/enter or whatever from that point would be pointless.

An example of being able to do what you say is this. I have my Harmony set to listen to music. Generally I manually navigate to the music app and start the playlist list visually, but since I have a plasma set I don't want to leave it there burning into the screen. At this point I press listen to music and the following happens...

TV turns off
Surround Sound switches to MP3

At this point I adjust the volume normally using the surround sound.

When I press any other activity the remote does this

TV Turns on
Surround Sound switches to TV
Sends "TiVo" button command to return the tivo to the TiVo Central Screen.

Each of these commands can be sent from the remote, the only catch is that the remote has to be pointing at the system the entire time. Children and impatient wives might set the remote aside after hitting the button thinking that it'll just happen. You just need to tell them if they do that to make certain the remote is still pointing at the set.

PS: My BIGGEST issue with the Harmony remote is the delay. There is a noticable delay between pressing a button and seeing the results on screen that can't be programmed out. Even setting the delays on that device to 0 doesn't help, so the remote is generally not as quick as the TiVo remote. It will also buffer commands so that you'll over shoot if you hold the button down too long. I still haven't figured out how to prevent that.

Overall however the Harmony kicks butt. I like it quite a bit.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

Mark W said:


> Can anyone else share how they used their LCD Buttons for Tivo? My plan for them with the 628, from the upper right button working clockwise would be LiveTV, Info, Skip, Jump Back, List, Menu.
> 
> I would also imagine assigning the Slow function to the Stop button, and clear to the +* button.
> 
> ...


I remapped the FF and RW buttons to replay and skip. I felt the soft buttons weren't generally equipped to handle a lot of use and I use those more frequently than the FF and RW functions.


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## vascott1 (Jan 8, 2004)

One thing you will find with the Harmony remotes is you have no control over what function goes on what button in the LCD display. They just show up. I have a 688 and I love it. The website also used to have the option to set the remote code for your tivo (if you had more than one) but it wa removed because too many users were messing up and setting it the wrong way. Last I checked you had to call support and they would set your remote code for you. I asked for that feature back on the website but not sure if it will make it back.. 

Scott


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## Mark W (Dec 6, 2001)

vascott1 said:


> One thing you will find with the Harmony remotes is you have no control over what function goes on what button in the LCD display. They just show up. I have a 688 and I love it. The website also used to have the option to set the remote code for your tivo (if you had more than one) but it wa removed because too many users were messing up and setting it the wrong way. Last I checked you had to call support and they would set your remote code for you. I asked for that feature back on the website but not sure if it will make it back..
> 
> Scott


How can that be? There's no way to tell it what function you want on what button?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

Mark W said:


> How can that be? There's no way to tell it what function you want on what button?


That is an incorrect statement. You can control which buttons are which in the LCD. It just takes some trail and error to get them moved around.


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## cstelter (Mar 18, 2002)

vascott1 said:


> One thing you will find with the Harmony remotes is you have no control over what function goes on what button in the LCD display. They just show up. I have a 688 and I love it. The website also used to have the option to set the remote code for your tivo (if you had more than one) but it wa removed because too many users were messing up and setting it the wrong way. Last I checked you had to call support and they would set your remote code for you. I asked for that feature back on the website but not sure if it will make it back..
> 
> Scott


Yeah, I don't get the LCD placement either. I know that I put my TV's Aspect button on all my activities and it always seems to show up on the first button.

I'd love for others to share how they've mapped buttons to learn new tricks.

Here's how mine are set up-- I have a 680 though, not the 628. The 680 has quite a few more buttons than the 628. I honestly don't recall how many of these were the default and how many I had to set up specifically, but I think I had to set up a number of them different from the default.

My stop button is mapped to slow

My record, rewind, ff, play and pause all map to the normal functions.

Live is mapped to 'Live Tv'

Rec'd is mapped to 'List' (i.e. Now Playing)

Menu is mapped to the TiVo button

Exit is mapped to 'Exit'

Back (the <-- button) is mapped to 'Ratio'

*i* is mapped to 'Info' button

Guide button mapped to 'Guide'

>>| is mapped to -->

|<< is maped to the 8second replay button.

My LCD has

Aspect TiVo
LiveTV ThumbUp
ThumbDn

But I never use the TiVo or LiveTV-- they were there as default iirc, so my mapping of TiVo to Menu and LiveTV to Live may have been specials.

I find that if I am watching 4:3 content that is letter boxed, I want to go to panel mode and use 16:9 zoom on my TV. But if I'm watching 4:3 normal content I generally prefer my TV's 4:3 expanded mode so I have to switch to 480p, and from panel to full. Having the Aspect LCD button plus the <-- mapping makes life tolerable.


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## BigBearf (Aug 18, 2005)

Am a Harmony 880 user and control 2 SD-DVR and 3 HR10s to a single TV with no problem and have stereo thru Bose 321. The way I have it set up is to remap the Prev key to Pause and the Menu Key to Tivo. 

I then have the LCD screen set up as follows 
1. Guide 2. Tivo 
3. Info 4. Exit 
5. Rewind 6. FF 
7.Replay 8. 30 Sec Skip 
If you enter them in this order then the Tivo, Exit, FF, and 30 Sec Skip will align along the right side and I find that this helps approximate the peanut. 
I hope this helps 
BigBearf


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

Here is how my buttons map out on my Watch TV activity


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## tenement9 (Nov 9, 2005)

I have the 360 harmony remote. It was very simple to setup. I use the xbox buttons to do other things. Macros are fairley easy to setup. When entering or leaving an activity is when I have my lights turn on or off, auto play, go to guide, etc. Its also nicer looking than my last remote. My wife loves it better as well. Now she just pushes what she wants to do and it does it for her. Also the remote has a faster response time than other universal remotes.


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## beanpoppa (Jan 7, 2004)

I got in on the Amazon deal, and got my remote yesterday to replace the peanut remote that my 1 year old managed to hide from us.

The software was a pain to install, between multiple firmware updates to the remote and the PC software, but once I got it working, everything is ok. I've removed most of the commands from the custom buttons, leaving the following (in order

Exit
LiveTV
ThumbsUP
Info
ThumbsDown
TiVo (DirecTV)

I also changed the Stop button (which has no function, really) to a 30sec skip, and the Prev button to Replay. This gives me the closest feel to the peanut.

StormSpace- I noticed that you put FF and RW on the custom buttons. Is this because you remapped the hard >> and << buttons to Skip/Replay? That sounds like a better way, actually.


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## Mark W (Dec 6, 2001)

Does the PREV button come automatically mapped to the Enter/Last button from the peanut?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

beanpoppa said:


> I got in on the Amazon deal, and got my remote yesterday to replace the peanut remote that my 1 year old managed to hide from us.
> 
> The software was a pain to install, between multiple firmware updates to the remote and the PC software, but once I got it working, everything is ok. I've removed most of the commands from the custom buttons, leaving the following (in order
> 
> ...


That is exactly what I did. I found that I was using the skip and replay quite a bit more than FF and RW, so I mapped the former commands to the hard buttons.


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## Bierboy (Jun 12, 2004)

beanpoppa said:


> ...I also changed the Stop button (which has no function, really) to a 30sec skip...


I mapped Slow to the Stop button on my Harmony SST659...instant slo mo when I need it.


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## Mark W (Dec 6, 2001)

Well, I may not have to worry about any of this, because I just got an e-mail from them saying that "They will not be able to fulfill my order because it is not available from any of our sources". But yet if you go back on their site you can order it for $47.99. Apparently that goes through another company. This really burns me, it was supposed to have shipped out yesterday.  

Anybody ever have luck before trying to dispute this with them and have them honor their price?


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

Received my 628 today. The multiple updates to the firmware in the unit and to the software on the PC was a bit tedious. Then understanding the website for the setup was another whole adventure. I think they could design an expert mode with a layout for the whole thing, including all devices and activities together. What I found tedious was the need to download and run a new version of the LearnIR program after each device was added. And then you have to do the same for the Update program after a change. 

And the remote is slow in sending commands. I'm still learning to navigate around the website, but it certainly doesn't make it easy. I have it controlling the Mitsubishi TV, HDTiVo, Sat T60, DSR6000, Dish 301 receiver, LiteOn LVW5045 DVD recorder, Sony AV receiver and a Sony VCR. There's a few adjustments needed. 

I assume that when it asked to learn some TiVo commands it was determining which remote address they were set to. 

I'll try Stormspace's post to change the LCD button arrangement, thanks. 

Edit: Okay, that layout isn't right. First of all on the 628, the top LCD buttons can't be mapped. Or can they?


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

Jim, on the harmony remote site go to your "home" page. Click on "home" in the upper left corner. Under more options click on "Always go directly to my Home Page" and then click on More Options. That should give you a list of devices and activities. Also there is a way on the website to change the delay between sending signals. Under the device click on "More options" and then "Adjust the delays".


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

I saw the delay settings during some setup, but I thought at the moment it would be better to get functionality working first. I'll check the Home page.

Edit: Okay I found the setting to allow six entries on the LCD. So the layout above works. I'm close with the TiVo controls. Now just top tweak the Dish 301 and LiteON DVD recorder. I'll leave those for tomorrow.


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## Mark W (Dec 6, 2001)

Well, I finally got my 628 yesterday after having to re-order it. My first impression out of the box is that I LOVE the look and feel of it, and the placement of the buttons. I thought I would get to some of the programming last night, but all of those stupid software installs and updates took so long, I didn't have time to get into it.

Here's hoping the setup goes well for me.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

Be patient with it. Everytime you say to update the remote, the system will download an executable with the name of Update.EXHex. Have your computer run the program to make the update. Same thing happens if you need to have the remote learn other IR codes (LearnIr.EZTut).


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## moxie1617 (Jan 5, 2004)

JimSpence said:


> I saw the delay settings during some setup, but I thought at the moment it would be better to get functionality working first. ................


Here is link to a thread on the avsforum regarding how to deal with slow response (fixing delay times) on the Harmony Remotes.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=623320


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## SteveInNC (Jun 23, 2005)

Related to delays, there is also a "repeat count" that controls how many times the remote sends a particular code per button press. It's designed to add some redundancy, but slows things down if not needed. Between adjusting this and the delays, you can greatly speed up the operation of the remote. There is a specific user forum for Harmony remotes over at RemoteCentral that covers most of these issues, although you'll have to do some searching through the archive for particular questions.

http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin/mboard/rc-harmony/list.cgi


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

So far I'm very happy with my 628, except for the somewhat clunky website interface (but, once you have all of your devices set the way you want it isn't used that much unless you like to tinker). I haven't done any of the timing or repeat adjustments.


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## Mark W (Dec 6, 2001)

Well, I started to program it over the weekend. While the programming process is a little long, it seems to work fairly well. Now I just have to make my adjustments. It seems that with my Infocus 4805 projector, it's not using discrete power on and off commands. If the projector is on when it is not expecting it to be, it turns off instead of on. I looked quickly into trying to fix that, but making changes is certainly not intuitive.

By the way, the help button on the remote is a great idea, it seems that this will be very handy for the rest of my family who don't know how to use it. It seems to work pretty well.

I have some specific questions that I am hoping you folks can help me with:

1) The default setup that I came up with tries to "turn off" the DTivo by putting it in standby when I change activities, did that happen for you follks? I imagine that is easy to fix by just editing the activity?

2) For my Watch TV activity, I have the display device as a 27" TV that uses the composite outs from the DTivo. In order for this to work, the resolution has to be set to 480i. If I remember correctly, there are no discrete codes for this for the HDTivo, correct? Has anyone figured out any kind of workaround to this?

3) I have one activity called Listen to Satellite Music. For that one, it turns display devices off, sets the Receiver correctly, and tunes the Tivo to channel 818 (a nice touch by Harmony to make this so easy). My question is, since there is no display device on, changing channels is very difficult. Is there any way to program my six favorite XM music channels to the six LED buttons?

Thanks.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

The Harmony doesn't have macro capabilty as you know it. But, I can think of at tleast two ways to do what you want with the music channels. 1) Create several extra activities (one for each channel you might want), and 2) just enter the channel number using the remote's number pad.


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## Mark W (Dec 6, 2001)

Thanks for replying Jim, adding additional activities could work maybe adding one additional one to put me in the country section for the wife. Entering the numbers are no good, cuz I don't know them! The lack of macros is sure an odd limitation for such an advanced line of remotes, along with the lack of ability to more directly tell it what you want. I still really like it so far though overall.


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## bud8man (Feb 13, 2004)

I read that the weaknees IR to RF converter kit does not work with Harmony remotes on the weaknees website.
Has anybody had any experience with any other kits doing the trick? I have my AV unit behind a wall...I was thinking another Media Caster if I had to...


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## bud8man (Feb 13, 2004)

I was thinking about the music thing...here is another idea....
If it is only 6 stations you want...set up activity with your Direct TiVo unit (it will be the same Direct TiVo one you have) and edit the stations it has (Setup TV Content) to only the 6 channels you want listed.
Then you would only have to scroll through them with the channel selector.


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## Mark W (Dec 6, 2001)

bud8man said:


> I was thinking about the music thing...here is another idea....
> If it is only 6 stations you want...set up activity with your Direct TiVo unit (it will be the same Direct TiVo one you have) and edit the stations it has (Setup TV Content) to only the 6 channels you want listed.
> Then you would only have to scroll through them with the channel selector.


When you say "edit the stations it has", what does that mean?


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## Mark W (Dec 6, 2001)

Thanks for the help with the standby folks, that seems to be working now. Another question, is there any way to change the order that the activities show under the More Activities button? My most used are currently at the end.


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## bud8man (Feb 13, 2004)

Mark W said:


> When you say "edit the stations it has", what does that mean?


Instead of using the set up radio or satellite use set up TV.
Then on your home page you should see the activity and it should have a hyper link to edit TV content.
Click it and if you click the blue (X) on the right the channels will disapear.
No way to delete a lot of channels fast...so it will take a while, but may be worth it in the end.


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