Logitech Harmony Remote issue

[jontykint]

Hi
Anyone have experience of the Harmony Elite remote?

Specifically this scenario

1 sky hd box with split signal to front room tv and bedroom tv with magic eye.

I’m watching sky in bed, turn off the bedroom tv (Sky tv remote in the bedroom)
Go into front room to continue watching sky tv
Pick up harmony elite and start activity “watch sky tv”
Harmony turns on front room tv, turns on surround amp, selects input...then turns OFF sky hd box.

All the activity steps are correct, but the remote doesn’t know the sky box is already on so the toggle on turns it off.

Is there a fix for this?

[AB]

I’d be interested to know too as it’s one of the reasons I have to keep the Sky remote on hand.

[curlyks2]

Sky box turned on by the Sky remote? If so then the Harmony system doesn't know it's on - it's only aware of what it does itself.

jontykint said:

I’m watching sky in bed, turn off the bedroom tv (Sky tv remote in the bedroom)

Does this bit turn off just the bedroom TV, or the TV and the Sky box? If it's just the TV, then at this stage the Sky box is still on, which means that...

jontykint said:

Go into front room to continue watching sky tv
Pick up harmony elite and start activity “watch sky tv”
Harmony turns on front room tv, turns on surround amp, selects input...then turns OFF sky hd box.

...turns off the Sky box, because Harmony thinks it's off and sends the on/off toggle command.

Have a similar thing sometimes here if the TV is turned on using the TV remote to use one of the apps on it (Netflix, Amazon, iPlayer, ...). Using the Harmony remote to then turn other stuff on as part of the "Watch TV" sequence turns the TV off. If the Harmony remote is used to just turn the TV on, then it knows it's on already if another sequence and doesn't try to turn it on (off) again.

[FunkyGibbon]

You could flip to the devices tab on harmony and find sky box and power toggle back on.

Then powering off from the sky activity will turn everything off correctly.

[anonymous-user]

Same here. It's purely because the harmony isn't involved in the process of turning your bedroom TV and sky on and off.

You harmony can't tell if any of your devices are on or off. It can only "assume" based on its previous action. So if you do something manually then Harmony will get confused.

Easiest thing to do is either.

In the bedroom:
When you press the TV power button, press the sky power button too. (Thus turning everything off , in a state the harmony thought it should be in). This is by far the most logical solution .

Or

In the lounge :

Press Devices, Sky, power toggle (then press the activity button again to put it back in activity mode)
Or
Press settings icon, help, then it will fix it for you.

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 6th January 10:36

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 6th January 10:37

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 6th January 10:38

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 6th January 10:38

[Civilian47]

If you're happy leaving the Sky box on can't you just set the remote to not toggle power? That's what I did to avoid a similar issue with my Virgin Tivo.

[jontykint]

Thanks for the suggestions!

All those things above will work, but slightly negate the "one for all" aspect of the Harmony.
I just about bear it, but it drives my mrs insane, not knowing when or where to use which remote at which part of the activity, especially if yo have to switch to "devices" to switch manually.

Turning the Sky and TV off in the bedroom is a logical solution, yes. But my 6 year old isn't always logical in his approach to what gets turned on/off/upside down etc!
Another TV is also getting added very soon in the kitchen with the same Sky box linked, so thats another one to think about.
And me and the wife will just forget

We hardly ever watch TV seperately so don't have a need for multiroom options.

I have found a solution though!
Digging into the devices menu on the iPhone app there is a "power setting" option on what happens during activities including the Sky DVR.
It asks if you use 2 buttons for on/off or 1 toggle button too, and delay options too if required.

That has sorted it i think

[FunkyGibbon]

or add another activity for your upstairs room (and the new TV you get) and always have the harmony to hand?

[jontykint]

FunkyGibbon said:

or add another activity for your upstairs room (and the new TV you get) and always have the harmony to hand?

iPhone app could be better for that
The harmony remote would probably just get left around and run out of battery

[VEX]

If I was programming for a client (just done 6 in one house) I would set the Hamony to leave the box on all the time, then it won’t try to turn it on or off.

Then as a backup I would create a ‘soft’ button on the screen to toggle the Sky Box on /off.

[FarmyardPants]

VEX said:

If I was programming for a client (just done 6 in one house) I would set the Hamony to leave the box on all the time, then it won’t try to turn it on or off.

Then as a backup I would create a ‘soft’ button on the screen to toggle the Sky Box on /off.

As above. I have 4 displays on a matrix and all my sources are on 24x7. Switching them on and off causes issues with moving between rooms and the remotes not knowing the current state.

The only issue is the sky box goes into standby overnight, so on first use of the day one has to press the “power on sky box” touchscreen button which is mapped to InputSky. Avoid power toggles if there are codes for discrete on/off.

[VEX]

If it is a Sky HD box you can turn off the 'eco' mode so that it stays on all the time.

Cant remember if the Q boxes are the same, I can check tomorrow on-site.

V.

[Moily]

jontykint said:

It asks if you use 2 buttons for on/off or 1 toggle button too, and delay options too if required.

That has sorted it i think

That's the area you need to look at. If you can get it to just send the Power On command rather than Power Toggle then that's the optimal solution.

If those Power Options don't do exactly that then a workaround is to go back to the current setup but add an additional command at the end of the Startup sequence for your 'Watch Sky' activity which sends the same command as the 'Sky' button maps to on the original remote

The 'Sky' button brings the Sky box out of standby so adding that as the last command in the startup sequence should work, albeit slightly sub-optimally by having the (already on) Sky box toggle into standby and back out again when you start the activity.

[VEX]

VEX said:

If it is a Sky HD box you can turn off the 'eco' mode so that it stays on all the time.

Cant remember if the Q boxes are the same, I can check tomorrow on-site.

V.

Just to confirm, the Q boxes have this option too.

We also ran into problems with the CEC settings on the TV's turning boxes off when the local tv turned off, even if it was being watched by another screen. Solved by turning HDMI Control OFF.

V.