What TV do you have?

It's a Syntax Olevia 532, I believe. It was cheap, and works, though with the drop in big flat screens I'm thinking of upgrading. Either way though I still want an upconverting receiver. Having to switch two devices is always going to work worse than switching one. They've dropped in price down to the $400 level, and I'll probably pick one up when they hit $300 unrefurbished.

For posterity, I found the solution. It's a bit of a jerry-rig but it works.

My solution was to set the inter-device delay on everything to a very small number so that macros would get executed very fast, then to add an additional command for re-setting the TV input to the end of each "Activity".

Having lived with the Harmony One for a while now, I thought I'd post a quick follow up.

It's the best, most useful remote I've ever owned. It works better with all of my A/V gear than any of the other universal remotes I've used. It's far more programmable than any other remote I've tried, and once I've wrapped my brain around the pain-in-the-ass PC programming software, I can really make it do anything under the sun. And it's *fast*, faster than any universal remote I've ever owned, its macros execute quickly and reliably.

There are some who say the concept of "Activities" isn't as useful as the old standard concept of "Macros". Bah, I say. The activities thing is brilliant. Now that I've got the thing programmed right, it's so user-friendly that I don't need to tell anyone anything about how to use it. It's entirely self-sufficient. Just leave it on the coffee table and anyone can walk in and control any one of my ten pieces of A/V gear without blinking. You don't even have to know how to choose an activity... pick the thing up and the motion sensor turns on the bright colored touchscreen with the activities clearly listed.

On the programming side, there's room to do anything I want, including adding extra idiot-proofing and fault tolerance in the activities. I've even figured out how to put little text messages on the screen for certain activities, by making extra "buttons" that say things like: "Pick up the" "black PS3 controller" "and press the" "center P button".

If only they could make that PC software better. *sigh*.

The thing that I hate about the Harmony remotes is the buttons. I bought an 880 and promptly returned it because the buttons feel like crap, and the layout is absolute garbage.

My view of the Harmony remotes is that some of their models have buttons with a good tactile feel to them, some others have decent button layouts, and still others have a good feature set, but never those three shall meet to form a single remote that I would be happy with.

I have the 880 and I like the hard buttons. I will agree that the layout is bad, but it's certainly not any worse than the remote that comes with virtually any other device I've ever had, TiVo excepted. (The 880's apparent replacement, the One, seems to be better on this front.)

I can't say anything positive about the design of the 880 Bitt. The buttons are terrible and will fail - every one I've seen has failed in some way or another after a few years (my volume up requires extreme pressure to operate). The screen is ultra-bad and the fact it's colour serves no purpose other than to waste batteries quicker.

The One looks half-decent, but I'm not holding my breath. Logitech engineers everything with a relatively short lifespan in mind it seems.

As far as pack-in remotes go, you're right, most of them are terrible. The TiVo's is an exception, and I also quite like the newer one included with Squeeze Box 3 and Transporter from Slim Devices.

I'm very happy with the buttons on my One.

Something thing I like about these hard buttons is that, unlike rubberized buttons, the silkscreening is less likely to wear off of tops of these buttons with years of use. An important factor for a remote that's so programmable it'll likely be my only remote for a decade or more.

Its choice of button shape and layout is pretty good for me in terms of tactile feel. I especially like their design of the play/pause button pair.

It's missing one "face" button that I would have liked: It's got a "Guide" button but not a "List" button, a surprising omission in this age of DVRs. But the list button is on the touch-screen just fine, and I've also overloaded the little unused "plus sign" button on the lower corner to be "List" if I really want a hard button for that feature.

The solution to the silkscreen problem with rubberized buttons is to not use silkscreen. Many of the one-for-all remotes embed the markings directly into the button, so as it wears down, the markings remain. Neither of my OFA remotes has ever had the button markings disappear (not that I'd care, because I can touch type on them.)

The layout of the Harmony One looks more sane than the 880, but it doesn't have enough hard buttons for my liking. The touchscreen should always be a last resort, IMHO, for really complicated stuff.

My ideal remote would probably have the "activity" behavior of the Harmony remotes, several more hard buttons than the Harmony One has, a regular info screen in lieu of the touchscreen, and rubberized buttons. The likelihood of something like that coming along is low, but for what they charge for remotes, I'm going to wait for it.

All this time I thought you had an 1100 with the stupid tablet form factor. I didn't realize that the One had a touchscreen.

TonyC: What additional hard buttons do you want?

Honestly, I just want more of them. I never want to have to touch a touchscreen. The one reason the 880 looked appealing is because it has buttons on the side of the screen, but in retrospect, the buttons are so flaky and small that they're worthless.

I recognize the value of a touchscreen, but every time I've tried a remote with one, it's felt unsatisfying and confusing. I don't ever have to look at my remote to do things now, forcing me to look down to see what page of touchscreen functions is selected seems like a step backward.

I'm not sure I understand, because I only owned a Harmony remote for a few days, but I'm not sure what you can do with "Activities" that you can't do with macros. The way you've described your One is exactly how I've programmed my Pronto. I never had to explain to my wife how to use it, because when you pick it up, all you see are three options: Tivo, DVD, and Power Off. Pressing any of those takes you to the controls for that device, and there's always a clear option that will take you back to that home screen from any other screen. That's pretty much what "Activities" do, right?

Plus, I can go as far as to create hex codes in order to assign discrete codes that will guarantee that nobody will ever see that dreaded troubleshooting screen. This is the #1 thing that made me return my Harmony.

You must live in a perfect world where all your devices have discrete codes. Unfortunately, the real world hasn't proved to be that way for me. Yes, the help system is annoying, but it works for everyone, not just the person who set the thing up.

Matthew

Even if you do have discrete codes, it's still more efficient for the remote to be a state machine so that it can skip things that are already done.

"Macros" and "Activities" are not contradictory. A Macro is simply a command sequence and absolutely nothing more. An "activity" mode is simply the grouping of multiple devices such that buttons on a single remote can be sent to more than one device.

Harmony's remotes are all about macros, but the details are for the most part hidden from the user. That's the beauty for most people. All-on, all-off, input selection, etc. They don't need to construct their own macros nor do they need to fiddle with punch-through configurations as found on cheap remotes to combine multiple devices onto a single mode profile. Nor do they need to do the more manual and laborious configuration necessary on other more expensive remotes such as the Pronto and Home Theater Master.

The Harmony also features some additional logic and state tracking that is not possible to implement with most other off-the-shelf universal remotes, including Prontos (though I believe some do support variables, right?). But "activity" based usage did not start with the Harmony. They just made it more consumer "friendly."

I put that in quotes because even in its latest iterations, their software is far from friendly or polished from an interaction point of view.

Toggle commands can often be as important as discrete codes, so they have their place. Some devices have a number of not very well known discrete codes, you just have to really search for them. There are also ways to achieve known-states for some devices by using combinations of existing codes.

Having discrete codes doesn't make a remote like the Harmony series bulletproof, but it does make it much easier to get your setup in sync, because you know you can repeat discretes as many times as you want without ever jumping out of the state you're trying to jump into.

I have 3 or 4 Harmony remotes, two Prontos, two Home Theater Master and about half a dozen other $200+ remotes.

You're oversimplifying it. If you can guarantee that you're starting from a steady state, then, yes, activities are nothing more than macros. But you can't guarantee that, even with discrete codes.

Example setup: you're watching your DVD (input 1), you then switch to an always-on DVR (input 2), then you listen to CDs.

• Examples without discrete codes:
  • Macro:
    • (1) send TV power signal, guess at input 2 signal
      [TV turned off, DVD player still on, possibly playing, video input may or may not be right]
    • (2) send CD player power signal, send amp power signal, guess at amp input signal
      [TV still on (assuming you manually fixed it in the last step), audio input may or may not be right]
  • Activity:
    • (1) send signal to go from input one to input 2, send power signal to DVD player
      [everything OK]
    • (2) Send power signal to CD player, send power signal to TV, send power signal to amp, send signal to move from last input to CD input
      [everything OK]
• Examples with discrete codes
  • Macro:
    • (1) send TV on signal, send DVR input signal
      [DVD player still on]
    • (2) send amp on signal, send CD player on signal
      [TV still on]
  • Activity:
    • (1) send DVR input signal, send DVD player off signal
      [everything okay]
    • (2) send TV off signal, send amp on signal, send CD input signal, send CD player on signal
      [everything OK]

And that's a really basic example. When you start having to control more things, and selecting separate audio and video inputs, etc., macros become completely useless.

That said, the fact that the Harmony remotes barely have any macro facilities is bad, since there are some things that are impossible to do with activities. Say, for example, turning on closed captioning when it requires that you go through a menu.

State machine, like others have said. Here's a specific concrete example:

- I have an activity called "Sattelite TV", which needs my TV on.

- I have an activity called "Listen to music", in which I want the TV off but the Rio Receiver on.

- My TV doesn't have discrete on and off, it's only a toggle. (Bastards.)

So because it knows whether or not I was already in the middle of the "Satellite TV" activity, it can know whether or not to toggle the TV on or off.

I should have been clearer in my macros v activities, as I was focusing more on discrete codes, because I fortunately have those codes for my devices. But I cannot argue against discrete codes being uncommon, which completely baffles me. What baffles me even more is when companies like Sony put the codes in their devices and then give users no way of using them. What's keeping them from shipping a remote with at least separate power buttons? No, instead I have to go to a web site I use, cobble together a string of codes, enter that string into a hex code generator I have, and then paste that hex code into my Pronto software. Thank goodness I only have to do it once!


I will argue with one thing, Bitt, and that's your macro example under "with discrete codes." Why on earth can't you include a "power off" command for the DVD player? If you do, I think you can see for yourself that when discrete codes are used, there are no differences between macros and activities, except for what happens when they fail, in which case I claim that macros have the advantage, because you can describe exact states for your devices.

And say your DVD player is the only device you have without discrete codes. If you think about it, any macro that uses discrete codes can use a maximum of one toggle command.


I must admit, it's gotten to the point where my purchasing decisions for new home theater equipment includes the requirement that it have discrete codes, and considering that equipment like my TV and receiver get at least two signals from me every session, I don't think that's unreasonable.

I wish there were an easy way to know, when browsing at bestbuy, whether a given device has discretes. It certainly would have affected my purchase decision on the TV.

I'd like to find the Chinese engineer who decided no one needs discretes and hit him with a clue stick.

The only method I've found is to look on remotecentral.com. But that's not always fruitful...

Because it doesn't have any state. The only two possibilities are to only send commands related to the device you're activating, or send off commands to everything else. That's not a big deal for my simple example, but what if you have, for example, what I have: a TV, an AV receiver, an additional AV switch, a TiVo, a DVD player, a CD player, a laserdisc player, and a Wii? Then say, for example, you want to watch the TiVo. It would have to send off commands to every other device. And my wife can't consistently point my Harmony at the wall long enough for it to turn on both the TV and the AV switch.


Okay, say everything's off. Then you watch your TiVo and send your macro that includes a DVD toggle signal. Now your DVD player is on. Then you decide you want to watch a DVD and send that macro that includes a toggle. Now your DVD player is off. So you get frustrated and send your Off macro. Now the DVD player is on.

For you and me, this is no big deal. Well, for me it's no big deal until my wife does this and calls me at work frustrated and blaming, and I have no way to look and see what the current state is.

I'd play CDs on my DVD player, upgrade my receiver to get rid of the switch, and finally ditch my laserdisc. Totally kidding Well, for me I would do that, but I can absolutely understand why you wouldn't.

So yes, I suppose I do have very few devices. But it doesn't take long to send "power off" or "power on" commands to all of them, even if I had the number you do. Actually, you could pretty much send all those commands instantaneously (my power off command talks to at least four things, and sends it all in less than a second). The only real delays that are necessary are for when things like the TV first turn on, when you typically can't change the input until it warms up a little. Don't you still have that delay with the Harmony?


***I thought the Wii took its power commands wirelessly, not via IR...

As background, I previously designed a system that's in many ways comparable to what Harmony has on their remotes. But better of course. I don't have all those remotes because I simply enjoy having one of every high end remote made.

I'm not simplifying anything, I'm stating that the two concepts are NOT the same and NOT the same "type" or "class" or "subject," therefore also not contradictory. Macros make part of any good activity-related paradigm. Macros should not be compared VERSUS activities because the former is a tool while the latter is a use or functional paradigm. One is wine and the other is a party. One is an animal, the other a zoo. Hope I'm being clear.

On to the rest... I DO agree with the bigger point you're trying to make however. A product that has only the ability to send single IR codes and manually created macro sequences will not be as seamless (friendly, fool-proof in general) as one that has the ability to track state. That's a given and anyone trying to argue otherwise is mistaken.



BItt, unfortunately your examples don't relate to the real world and they're actually incorrect. But as mentioned, I still understand the larger point you're trying to make.

The Harmony remotes only lack exposing a UI to the consumer for complex or arbitrary Macros (for instance the ability to add a macro to any button). But they do expose some configurable Macro functionality. And as I said, they have the most powerful and configurable macro capabilities of any remote ever made, it's just all handled in their web software.

When you upload your configuration to the remote you're actually (for the most part) sending up a brand new firmware custom configured with all the pre-generated macros. The remotes themselves are rather dumb in this sense, the whole program for them being generated on the web side and then uploaded.

With regards to terminology, you're stuck on the exact thing I was warning people not to get stuck on. Focusing on the difference between a manually created macro and one that's obscured within a larger usage paradigm. A macro is a "sequence" - a meta unit made up of individual building blocks, which in this case are individual IR codes.

All high end remotes have them. Harmony doesn't have arbitrary macro editing facilities for attaching custom sequences to any button. Even with the closest feature they have allowing you to group multiple IR codes, you cannot be certain of the order of the sequence.

On the back end, Harmony support people can put together any form of custom macro their hearts desire. The remote can be custom configured well beyond what is exposed to the customer at the web panel level.

A fully programmable remote with temporary and persistent variables could be custom configured to act exactly like a Harmony remote apart from its "Help" button. Which would obviously need some custom code that you wouldn't be able to throw onto just any remote (to run through your variables and format questions based on your devices).

And back to something else I said originally, there are many (many) tricks that can be used to try and ensure a specific state for devices that lack discretes. Anyway, better remotes support variables to track state (which is what the Harmony does).

To finish this off, the Harmony is pretty much the only "better" remote sold retail. All other products are generally sold only through the CI (custom installer) market and need professional installation. Such installation could be accomplished by most people on this board, but is well beyond the scope of the vast majority of consumers. You *can* buy all remotes intended for the CI market through specialty retail (mostly online) as well. Sometimes only "unofficially" though and you won't have the manufacturer's blessing - and in some cases warranty.

I've forgotten more about this stuff than most people will ever know. That's not an exaggeration either. I might start getting back into the more complex IR sequence and state logic subject in the near future though (some interesting opportunities have just come up).

It does. Bluetooth. The Wii console transmits IR through the "sensor" bar, the Wiimote RECEIVES IR.

Absolutely. I'm sorry you don't like me reusing Harmony's terminology. Go back to that post and mentally replace "Activity" with "State-based macro".

If someone sold such a remote with a decent form factor for $250 or less, I'd be all over it. In fact, I posted a thread a while back requesting information about how to hack a Harmony 880, hoping I could get this exact feature set.

But no one does, and Harmony is the closest it gets.

Picky, picky, picky.

Exactly.

I should probably have written originally that macros and activities are not mutually exclusive rather than not contradictory. That would likely have been clearer.

What we're really looking at here is the difference between a manual setup without state tracking versus an automated setup with state tracking. Both can use macros.

I've been out of the loop for a little while now so I haven't been following new product releases. There should be enough information at Remote Central to let you know which remotes support variables across activity modes. You may not find something for $250 or less though. At least not new/retail.

I don't have time to search right now, but I may be proved wrong.

I suspect it's going to cost you about $400 for a new remote to satisfy the base requirements you've mentioned here.

I did a quick scan and the newer HTM remotes support variables. The newer Prontos do too as far as I know, but they have a significant lack of hard buttons.

If those people complaining about "high" Apple product markups knew the parts/manufacturing costs of these remotes they'd drop a brick.

I've long suspected this. There's no way that the Pronto is actually worth that much money. It's not even as powerful or intelligent as your average smartphone, yet in some cases it costs half again as much as a smartphone without a carrier contract.

The problem is that there aren't as many alternatives. That's why the one thing I give Harmony remotes credit for is their fairly reasonable prices.

Then again, I've set up a few home theaters for people, and using one of my older Pronto remotes, I've been able to program a $20 Sony remote to do 98% of what people need (including macros), and for everything else they have the original remotes.