Home Automation Bargain Alerts thread - No General Chat

BelovedAunt

fergalc wrote: »

That's the older generation one. The newer Harmony is available for £179.94

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Logitech-Harmony-Elite-Remote-Control-Blue/dp/B014GXQOJ2/ref=dp_ob_title_ce

Is £79 a good price for the older model?

UsedToWait

BelovedAunt wrote: »

Is £79 a good price for the older model?

Not lowest ever, but not far off

OU812

Ugh.... someone tell me why I don’t need this.

Optimus Prime

OU812 wrote: »

Ugh.... someone tell me why I don’t need this.

I sent mine back after six months, told them it wasnt working. I couldnt get used to it. sometimes the tv would come on and not change to sky. it would lose communications with the hub\internet. the hue lights all had weird names and groupings on it. i found it a pain in the arse to be honest.

TitianGerm

Optimus Prime wrote: »

I sent mine back after six months, told them it wasnt working. I couldnt get used to it. sometimes the tv would come on and not change to sky. it would lose communications with the hub\internet. the hue lights all had weird names and groupings on it. i found it a pain in the arse to be honest.

Sounds like you didn't have it set up correctly?

Optimus Prime

Spent ages messing with it, had it setup for a lot of things. Sky Tv, Netflix, Hue lights, Sonos speakers, Nintendo WiiU even! Tried a Delay for Sky coming on after the TV turned on etc. it just didnt work sometimes. At least once a week it said it couldnt connect to the hub.

The high horse brigade

Optimus Prime wrote: »

Spent ages messing with it, had it setup for a lot of things. Sky Tv, Netflix, Hue lights, Sonos speakers, Nintendo WiiU even! Tried a Delay for Sky coming on after the TV turned on etc. it just didnt work sometimes. At least once a week it said it couldnt connect to the hub.

I have two and have had no issues like this. The most important tip I can give is to turn off HDMI CEC on your devices. This is a protocol which allows one device turn on or off other devices over HDMI. Different manufacturers call it different things, I know on LG it's called Simplink, you'll have to Google for your exact device to find out what it's called and then set the device

keane2097

The high horse brigade wrote: »

I have two and have had no issues like this. The most important tip I can give is to turn off HDMI CEC on your devices. This is a protocol which allows one device turn on or off other devices over HDMI. Different manufacturers call it different things, I know on LG it's called Simplink, you'll have to Google for your exact device to find out what it's called and then set the device

Why is it important to turn it off?

The high horse brigade

keane2097 wrote: »

Why is it important to turn it off?

Because Logitech themselves advise so, it gets in the way

https://support.myharmony.com/en-au/understanding-hdmi-and-cec

jones

keane2097 wrote: »

Why is it important to turn it off?

Otherwise everytime you turn on one thing its going to try turn on connected machines be it tv amp bluray etc. If you are doing that and then the remote turns them on aswell you'll end up getting no where.

Basically like pressing the power button twice on every device

sightband

OU812 wrote: »

Ugh.... someone tell me why I don’t need this.

What the transformer says below here...

Optimus Prime wrote: »

I sent mine back after six months, told them it wasnt working. I couldnt get used to it. sometimes the tv would come on and not change to sky. it would lose communications with the hub\internet. the hue lights all had weird names and groupings on it. i found it a pain in the arse to be honest.

Bought it whilst intoxicated, it is the greatest heap of shįte gadget I have ever used. How hard is it to use a few remotes anyway. You’ll spend five times as long trying to switch between them on that piece of shįt then using individual remotes. Thing has a mind of its own too. Tv will start turning up out of nowhere. It’s sent back which I consider a saving as I nearly threw it against the tv screen at one point.

The high horse brigade

sightband wrote: »

What the transformer says below here...



Bought it whilst intoxicated, it is the greatest heap of shįte gadget I have ever used. How hard is it to use a few remotes anyway. You’ll spend five times as long trying to switch between them on that piece of shįt then using individual remotes. Thing has a mind of its own too. Tv will start turning up out of nowhere. It’s sent back which I consider a saving as I nearly threw it against the tv screen at one point.

If it took several clicks to turn on your devices you did it wrong. I can turn on 5 devices to the right input with a single click. You were dead right to send it back, being a 12 o'clock flasher this was always going to be too difficult

sightband

The high horse brigade wrote: »

If it took several clicks to turn on your devices you did it wrong. I can turn on 5 devices to the right input with a single click. You were dead right to send it back, being a 12 o'clock flasher this was always going to be too difficult

Ooooo feisty, “how dare you insult my precious remote” wtf...besides, I said nothing about it taking several clicks to turn on devices. Read my post again.

There’s about fifty 1 star reviews on Amazon with a similar experience and sentiment to my own, have a read.

The high horse brigade

sightband wrote: »

Ooooo feisty, “how dare you insult my precious remote” wtf...besides, I said nothing about it taking several clicks to turn on devices. Read my post again.

There’s about fifty 1 star reviews on Amazon with a similar experience and sentiment to my own, have a read.

No you said it took you longer to turn over to devices. You did it wrong. It wasn't for you. Same with all the one star reviews on Amazon, people who couldn't figure it out.

Optimus Prime

Just for the record, without getting into insulting anyone and to give my experience with the remote, I was perfectly able to program it, set delays, have multiple devices turn on with one press. It just didnt work, it wouldnt connect to the hub, or the TV would turn on and then sky wouldnt etc. I spent hours tweaking and configuring it with my devices.

My whole house is setup with smart home devices like Echos, Sonos speakers, hue bulbs, elgato eve and TP-Link plugs and lifx bulbs. Im not new to tech and know how to configure a remote, it just was useless.

TitianGerm

Optimus Prime wrote: »

Just for the record, without getting into insulting anyone and to give my experience with the remote, I was perfectly able to program it, set delays, have multiple devices turn on with one press. It just didnt work, it wouldnt connect to the hub, or the TV would turn on and then sky wouldnt etc. I spent hours tweaking and configuring it with my devices.

My whole house is setup with smart home devices like Echos, Sonos speakers, hue bulbs, elgato eve and TP-Link plus and lifx bulbs. Im not new to tech and now how to configure a remote, it just was useless.

It might have been your hub was faulty?

Optimus Prime

Its possible it was! That was the reason i gave amazon when i sent it back, it did work for the first week or so. Obviously its fine for loads of people too, the experience seems to be mixed really so maybe there are issues with the hub.

bk

sightband wrote: »

Ooooo feisty, “how dare you insult my precious remote” wtf...besides, I said nothing about it taking several clicks to turn on devices. Read my post again.

There’s about fifty 1 star reviews on Amazon with a similar experience and sentiment to my own, have a read.

To be fair, from your comment it is very clear you didn't understand how to set it up. You said:

You’ll spend five times as long trying to switch between them on that piece of shįt then using individual remotes.

You don't have to do that if set up properly. I'm guessing you didn't understand the concept of "Activities".

I've setup an activity called "Watch TV", when I click it, it:
- Turns on the TV
- Turns on the Satellite Box
- Turns on the AV
- Sets the AV and TV to the correct inputs.

And once on, the buttons on the remote are a mix of the three remotes. So for instance in the above example, the direction and ok buttons control the sat box, but the volume and mute buttons control the AV.

That is all done with just one button press. No need switch between three different remotes! The whole point of this is that it acts as one integrated remote for each activity.

Harmony remotes are great IMO, if you have the patience to set them up properly, but they aren't simple and do require a bit of setting up to get working properly. They aren't for everyone and it sounds like they aren't for you.

bk

Optimus Prime wrote: »

Just for the record, without getting into insulting anyone and to give my experience with the remote, I was perfectly able to program it, set delays, have multiple devices turn on with one press. It just didnt work, it wouldnt connect to the hub, or the TV would turn on and then sky wouldnt etc. I spent hours tweaking and configuring it with my devices.

Yes, that is totally different, sounds like yours might have been faulty. I haven't had any issues like that with mine beyond the usual pain of IR.

One thing, were you perhaps trying to use the Hub in a different room from the remote? The remote communicates with the hub via Bluetooth and the range isn't great. If they are too far from one another or the walls between are too thick/metal it can cause the hub and remote to disconnect.

I suppose there could also be some other wireless interference in your place causing disconnects.

Optimus Prime

Hi, no same room, sometimes it just wouldnt connect to the hub at all. sometimes tv would come on but not switch to sky. there was just too much messing involved with it to be honest. its much easier just to use the normal remotes. (for me)

irelandrover

bk wrote: »

Yes, that is totally different, sounds like yours might have been faulty. I haven't had any issues like that with mine beyond the usual pain of IR.

One thing, were you perhaps trying to use the Hub in a different room from the remote? The remote communicates with the hub via Bluetooth and the range isn't great. If they are too far from one another or the walls between are too thick/metal it can cause the hub and remote to disconnect.

I suppose there could also be some other wireless interference in your place causing disconnects.

I had the same experience as Optimus Prime. Sometimes it would turn everything on perfectly, sometimes it wouldnt respond.

Gave up on the remote after a month or so. It was so unreliable that my wife was just getting frustrated.

sightband

bk wrote: »

To be fair, from your comment it is very clear you didn't understand how to set it up. You said:



You don't have to do that if set up properly. I'm guessing you didn't understand the concept of "Activities".

I've setup an activity called "Watch TV", when I click it, it:
- Turns on the TV
- Turns on the Satellite Box
- Turns on the AV
- Sets the AV and TV to the correct inputs.

And once on, the buttons on the remote are a mix of the three remotes. So for instance in the above example, the direction and ok buttons control the sat box, but the volume and mute buttons control the AV.

That is all done with just one button press. No need switch between three different remotes! The whole point of this is that it acts as one integrated remote for each activity.

Harmony remotes are great IMO, if you have the patience to set them up properly, but they aren't simple and do require a bit of setting up to get working properly. They aren't for everyone and it sounds like they aren't for you.

No, that is not what I meant at all, I didnt spend much time writing my post or put much thought into it as all I wanted to put across was that I thought it was an overpriced piece of shįt gadget that really doesn’t make life all that simpler, I wasn’t expecting to be hit by the harmony remote fan club...and with an added level of condescension. The watch tv activity was enabled and my sound bar, sky box, tv and correct hdmi input would all switch on and configure correctly, that is what you consider to be the amazingly convenient side to it? The Sony remote already took care of the sound bar and went to the correct input. What I am talking about is I have a zoomtak media player also, connected to a different hdmi port. I had this enabled as an activity also, for me picking up the zoomtak remote was quicker than switching with the harmony, and it was also a lot more responsive than the harmony remote when navigating. It wasn’t able to talk to the software on the box properly. And by the way, it really isn’t that hard to set up.

bk

sightband wrote: »

No, that is not what I meant at all, I didnt spend much time writing my post or put much thought into it as all I wanted to put across was that I thought it was an overpriced piece of shįt gadget that really doesn’t make life all that simpler, I wasn’t expecting to be hit by the harmony remote fan club...and with an added level of condescension. The watch tv activity was enabled and my sound bar, sky box, tv and correct hdmi input would all switch on and configure correctly, that is what you consider to be the amazingly convenient side to it? The Sony remote already took care of the sound bar and went to the correct input. What I am talking about is I have a zoomtak media player also, connected to a different hdmi port. I had this enabled as an activity also, for me picking up the zoomtak remote was quicker than switching with the harmony, and it was also a lot more responsive than the harmony remote when navigating. It wasn’t able to talk to the software on the box properly. And by the way, it really isn’t that hard to set up.

It sounds like you don't have a complicated Av setup, so you probably right that you didn't particularly need a Harmony remote.

I on the other hand have about a dozen devices and a dozen remotes:
- TV, AV, Sat box, Nvidia Shield TV, Now TV, Mac Mini, PS3, PS4, Xbox

Juggling that many remotes was a pain. The Harmony remote is a life safer for complicated setups.

For instance, previously, to just "Watch TV" that involved pulling out three different remotes, pressing power on each, and then changing inputs on two. And then you would have to actively use two remotes (AV for sound, Sat box for channels).

Switch to "Shield TV", pull out another set of remotes!

It was painful. And my missus would kill me. A single harmony remote is SO much easier for us.

I agree that not everyone has such complicated setups and thus needs this. But frankly your original comment came across really silly and comments like "harmony remote fan club" certainly aren't helpful.

bk

Optimus Prime wrote: »

Hi, no same room, sometimes it just wouldnt connect to the hub at all. sometimes tv would come on but not switch to sky.

Sounds like broken so or your having unusual wireless interference.

Both my Ultimate and Elite have been rock solid reliability. Only time I've seen such disconnects was when I tried using the remote two rooms away from the hub.

To be honest, I haven't had to touch mine in over a year now. It has been just working away perfectly.

I play around with a lot of tech. But I've a rule, that I'll only introduce it to the wider home if I find it reliable and easy to use. We've been using the Ultimate and Elite for years now, without issues. The missus loves it, baby sitters, grannies over, etc. no problems using it. I wouldn't use it there if it wasn't reliable.

Now I'm not at all saying you or others haven't had issues, I'm sure you have. Just pointing out that they aren't normal.

The high horse brigade

To be fair I also had 2 family members with average technical knowledge fail to setup theirs, I had to do it. They worked fine, they just weren't willing to put in the time and effort to ensure it worked

sightband

Censorship at its finest

iba

For anyone with difficulties with the remote, ensuring HDMI CEC (I think that's what is called) is turned off on all devices, TV, AVR, STB, PS3, PS4, Android Box is I suggest worthwhile.

And if you connect it to Alexa you can turn on and off your complete set up, change channels, increase and decrease volume, change devices and activities all by voice.

I wouldn't try using it with PS3 or PS4 unless you have the recently released Sony infrared to Bluetooth convertor. I can't think of the proper name but it's on amazon.com for 30 dollars.

https://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-Receiver-Logitech-Harmony-Control-4/dp/B01K3VMBM0

It can also be used to turn on and off lights and Nest heating system as well as many other things.

TitianGerm

iba wrote: »

For anyone with difficulties with the remote, ensuring HDMI CEC (I think that's what is called) is turned off on all devices, TV, AVR, STB, PS3, PS4, Android Box is I suggest worthwhile.

And if you connect it to Alexa you can turn on and off your complete set up, change channels, increase and decrease volume, change devices and activities all by voice.

I wouldn't try using it with PS3 or PS4 unless you have the recently released Sony infrared to Bluetooth convertor. I can't think of the proper name but it's on amazon.com for 30 dollars.

https://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-Receiver-Logitech-Harmony-Control-4/dp/B01K3VMBM0

It can also be used to turn on and off lights and Nest heating system as well as many other things.

My Elite works on the PS4. I wouldn't try playing a game with it but works grand for Netflix.

Didn't realise the Elite could be used with the Nest though.

bk

iba wrote: »

And if you connect it to Alexa you can turn on and off your complete set up, change channels, increase and decrease volume, change devices and activities all by voice.

Same on Google Home

iba wrote: »

I wouldn't try using it with PS3 or PS4 unless you have the recently released Sony infrared to Bluetooth convertor. I can't think of the proper name but it's on amazon.com for 30 dollars.

https://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-Receiver-Logitech-Harmony-Control-4/dp/B01K3VMBM0

Brilliant, at last! Always been a big complaint for PS4 owners. Actually the PS3 always worked fine with Harmony, it was the PS4 that was troublesome, I kept my PS3 for this reason just to play bulrays. This would allow me to get rid of the PS3.

TitianGerm wrote: »

My Elite works on the PS4. I wouldn't try playing a game with it but works grand for Netflix.

You can't power on the PS4 with the Elite remote though. You have to either use the controller, the PS4 app or just leave it on all the time. Once on, yes you can then control the PS4.

Of course the above linked item would likely solve this turning on issue.

TitianGerm

bk wrote: »

Same on Google Home



Brilliant, at last! Always been a big complaint for PS4 owners. Actually the PS3 always worked fine with Harmony, it was the PS4 that was troublesome, I kept my PS3 for this reason just to play bulrays. This would allow me to get rid of the PS3.



You can't power on the PS4 with the Elite remote though. You have to either use the controller, the PS4 app or just leave it on all the time. Once on, yes you can then control the PS4.

Of course the above linked item would likely solve this turning on issue.

Never came across that but I'd usually be after pressing the PS button on the controller by the time I think of running the PS4 activity on the Elite.