I seem to have a habit for writing up blog posts when on long train journeys but never spend any time finalising and posting them after. This is one of those posts that’s been ‘Under Construction’ since June 2016.
My current (2016) technology setup includes:
- TV – Sony KDL-37P3020
- Google Chromecast
- Bose SoundTouch 20
- Raspberry Pi
- Belkin WeMo (WeMo LINK and 2x bulbs)
- Logitech Harmony Companion
This post covers setting up my new Harmony and getting it to work with my existing entertainment tech.
Sony KDL-37P3020 TV
The Harmony remote works well with my TV as this has discrete commands for on and off (as opposed to a power toggle). As I only use this for the AV inputs and not live TV I’m not too sure how well it works for channel switching, but with discrete commands for AV4/5 (HDMI inputs) I can send the command and almost every time the TV behaves as it should. As this was the one device I couldn’t already control from my phone (it’s not a smart device – no network connectivity) this is a major plus point.
Google Chromecast
Although the Chromecast was discovered over the network (which I hoped was a sign of things to come with XBMC and SoundTouch… it wasn’t), Harmony did not actually do anything when tested with iPlayer or YouTube when casted from my iPhone – the play and pause buttons don’t work, so I’m not sure what the point in it taking up a device is.
Having done some searching online it should be possible to have some control using the Chromecast API, for example to Play and Pause, however Harmony doesn’t seem to send any of these.
Bose SoundTouch 20 Speaker
I’ve had multiple problems with my Bose SoundTouch. The first problem was that the ‘Aux’ button didn’t show on the virtual remote within Harmony. Logitech phone support were helpful getting this added (they are able to add buttons via your account and you can then sync the remote to detect them), although that was far from problem solved.
The second problem was although I now have an ‘Aux’ button, this appears to be a toggle (although labelled as discrete, if the button is pressed a 2nd time it goes to a ‘please select an input’ screen). One way I tried to get around this was by having the speaker go to a preset and then back to aux, so that whatever the input (e.g. Aux, Spotify or a Preset), it will always go to Preset 1 and then Aux. This doesn’t seem to be working every time – I’ll need to check the setup again but for instance when moving from Chromecast to XBMC although the input will change to a Preset it then changes back to ‘select an input’ – I’m not sure where the 2nd Aux input is being sent.
With the toggle it’s difficult as Harmony can’t really track what state the speaker is in – it is often turned on by Spotify from my laptop, phone or computer. Ideally I want it never to send an ‘On’ command, and just press Aux (providing the last thing it sent was an Off signal) – that way if the speaker is on Spotify it will change over, and if it’s off it will turn on to Aux. I’ve tested this manually to confirm which does work (this was how I turned the speaker on previously) as it should know the state and input it shouldn’t change when flicking between XBMC and Chromecast.
After almost an hour on the phone to support (which were helpful, although having to manually Sync after each change was a minor annoyance) we weren’t able to get anything better working. It looked to work most of the time but I hadn’t really tried out all use cases at that point.
As a final workaround for this I’ve assigned the ‘E’ button at the bottom of the numeric keypad to the Aux button, so that when 50% of the time it doesn’t work I can press the button to manually change to input over.
Settings Tried:
- My device does not have power buttons
- Power off but do not power on
- Send Preset 1, Delay 1s|2s , Send Aux
Although my speaker is Wi-Fi and can be controlled by Telnet / HTTP, commands are still sent by IR. It would be useful if it was seen as a ‘smart’ device so that the status could be found for currently playing media.
Raspberry Pi (Kodi – XMBC)
I have a Microsoft remote and USB IR sensor I have connected to my Raspberry Pi (running Kodi, formerly XBMC) to enable remote control. This works perfectly after setting the remote type in the XBMC settings, although it would be a problem if I did want to reconnect my Xbox 360 as would use the same IR signals.
It would be nice if it Harmony could connect over the network to XBMC instead of IR, sending API commands (JSON-RPC API). This would allow Harmony to get the current status – e.g. playing Video or Audio and turn on the relevant devices.
Conclusion
This definitely seems like something that would fit right in with a ‘standard’ setup – I think it would be ideal for my parents with their basic setup (TV / Sky / BluRay / Kindle Fire / Surround Sound) and would really cut down on the remote clutter, but for more customised setups although it does reduce the amount of remotes I need, it very rarely does the right thing first time.
Whilst the majority of issues can be overcome with manually added buttons this isn’t user-friendly for anyone else – for example I had to program an additional ‘Turn speaker to Aux’ button. I don’t feel like it would be any easier for friends to turn on the TV when visiting without assistance than it was when I had 3 remotes (or 5 at one point – standby adaptor and HDMI switch).