- This topic has 23 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 11 months ago by
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I’m 72, my 9 year old granddaughter could set one up given a list of the devices.
I know plenty of people who would struggle. The £35 model doesn’t come with an LCD screen which is one of the things that makes Harmony remotes so useful when configured. The £50 model with a screen is simply overkill for the OP (original poster) unless there are multiple devices to control.
A word of warning, the rechargeable battery in one of mine gave up the ghost after about 5 years, easily replaceable though. Some of the newer models have a non-replaceable rechargeable battery, I’d be inclined to stick to models that used standard batteries.
They do come up on sale every now and again at a significant discount and even the discounted price is hard to justify at times.
Cerclebois, I’m glad you’ve found a work around. It’s worthwhile trying the Hotel mode though, in theory it should save a button press or two
If the OP has a smart phone or tablet the freesat remote scheduling app can be used to control a G2 box using your home WiFi (No need to pair the app). No line of site required the box can even be in a different room to your Android/IOS device.
grahamlthompson – 8 hours ago »
Faust – 12 minutes ago »
grahamlthompson – 2 hours ago »
Treat yourself to a Harmony universal remote, my HDR1000S responds to my harmony with the remote pointing the other way to the box.
Well firstly you need to remortgage your home to fund the cost of the Harmony. Secondly – you need to enrol at night school in order to learn how to programme it and then use it.
Eh
All you have to do is log onto the Logitech website and tell them what devices you have and answer a few simple questions. If you find that difficult there is something wrong
It’s a lot simpler than getting to grips with a twin tuner pvr.
I have six different devices to control. I tried the Harmony but found it just to difficult to remember which buttons were controlling which devices, so sent it back.
I asked the wife last night to stop a video which was playing just before the evening news. After looking at the remote like it was a UXB she pressed a button and closed down the Humax completely. That was just ONE remote. Can you imagine the confusion if she had one remote controlling six different devices.
I did try to imagine it but the images quickly became too frightening . 😯
grahamlthompson – 9 hours ago » …No line of site required the box can even be in a different room to your Android/IOS device.
If you have more than one box remember to make a note of the code…
https://myhumax.org/forum/topic/using-freesatfreetime-app-as-a-rc-only#post-51114
We’re still in the dark ages of technology where Humax are concerned.
Faust – 10 hours ago »
grahamlthompson – 8 hours ago »
Faust – 12 minutes ago »
grahamlthompson – 2 hours ago »
Treat yourself to a Harmony universal remote, my HDR1000S responds to my harmony with the remote pointing the other way to the box.
Well firstly you need to remortgage your home to fund the cost of the Harmony. Secondly – you need to enrol at night school in order to learn how to programme it and then use it.
Eh
All you have to do is log onto the Logitech website and tell them what devices you have and answer a few simple questions. If you find that difficult there is something wrong
It’s a lot simpler than getting to grips with a twin tuner pvr.
I have six different devices to control. I tried the Harmony but found it just to difficult to remember which buttons were controlling which devices, so sent it back.
I asked the wife last night to stop a video which was playing just before the evening news. After looking at the remote like it was a UXB she pressed a button and closed down the Humax completely. That was just ONE remote. Can you imagine the confusion if she had one remote controlling six different devices.
I did try to imagine it but the images quickly became too frightening . 😯
The whole point is you don’t have to find the right remote. I have 10 devices and 12 activities. The more kit you have the easier it is to control.
If better half wants to watch the HDR1000S she pushes Watch HDR1000S.
The remote boots the HDR1000S, turns on the Yamaha AV receiver, selects the correct HDMI input used by the HDR1000S and turns on the TV and selects the correct HDMI port used by the Yamaha receiver, it then sends a exit command to the 1000S to get rid of the home screen. This allows the whole caboodle to be controlled from the Kitchen so the Kitchen TV can be used without needing to go into the lounge.
(To do this you would 3 remotes and control the volume with the Yamaha remote)
If she wants to then watch a recording made on my first HDR-FOX-T2 she pushes Watch HDR-FOX-T2:1 (I have 2). Box turns on the first HDR-FOX-T2, turns off the HDR1000-S and selects the correct input on the Yamaha AV reciever.
At the end of the day one button (Off) turns of all the currently used kit.
It would be a nightmare having to juggle 10 remotes instead of one.
Well it sound like you have the Harmony controlling things very well indeed.
However Graham, honest answer here. Forget you are a techie for a minute. How difficult would that be for the ordinary non-techie person to programme the Harmony to this level, if indeed they could actually do it?
Which model of Harmony do you own?
Arghh! this thread has been hi-jacked, I only mentioned the harmony in post #3 as it could have been useful to send a sequence of commands for the OP if nothing else worked.
Anyway, the biggest problem is getting your head around the concept of activities. The harmony shouldn’t been seen as a simple replacement for 6 or 10+ remotes.
You don’t need to remember buttons as each button on the remote does what it should do for a particular activity. The configurable LCD soft buttons cover what isn’t specifically printed on the actual buttons.
You set up the remote by telling it which devices you have to control. You could stop here and have a pretty pointless all in one remote that you have to switch between programmed devices.
The real fun starts when you create activities. With a single button press ‘Radio 4’ could be set up as switch off TV screen, switch on sound-bar or amp, set input to stereo/direct on amp, switch to freeview and switch to radio 4, adjust volume.
‘DVD’ could be set up as switch on DVD, put STB into standby, switch TV to hdmi3, switch amp to DVD input, switch to Dolby/DTS, eject tray and/or play disc in tray, switch 16:9 or 4:3 depending on squareness of eyes etc. etc.
The buttons on the harmony will correspond to the activity, i.e. ‘volume’ will control the amp or TV or freeview box depending upon configuration, ‘menu’ on ‘watch DVD’ activity will bring up DVD menu, ‘menu’ on ‘watch freeview’ activity will being up freeview’s menu.
The LCD soft buttons can be configured to cover all sorts of things, the fvp4000t for example has a few buttons missing from the original remote and these missing functions, such as ‘media’ can be added to a soft button, menu and guide works and I refuse to acknowledge the ‘home’ button on the original remote and the ‘plus’ button for that matter, they’re menu and opt on my harmony and the brilliant thing is the buttons are always in the same place regardless of device’s own remote (I have a horribly laid out panasonic and also samsung remote that thankfully I no longer need to touch)
This is just scratching the surface as to what’s convenient.
Programming the devices into the harmony is fairly simple, realising what can be done with activities can take hours to initially set up or, if like me as I change things, years later I’m still doing the odd tweak. I find the harmony incredibly useful.
I looked online before posting #3 and discounted the £35 model as it does not have an LCD ‘soft button’ screen. The £50 (600) model is over priced and only offers 5 devices and no idea about amount of activites. The 650 model makes more sense with 8 devices, but isn’t available at a decent price. Some of the newer models have a battery that isn’t replaceable which means cracking it open after approx. 5 years or throwing it away.
To give you an idea about discounts, I bought a new 515 a few years ago for £20 which would have been ideal for the OP. It’s used in the back room to control semi-redundant equipment. I use a 785 which does everything I want and it gets tweaked every now and again as I update.
The OP, if the humax remote is struggling, would do better with an all in one universal remote for around £10 to control TV and humax or possibly a big button universal remote for around £15 again controlling both TV and humax.
So techie hat off (I know you asked Graham, but I thought I’d jump in), yes it’s complicated, but well worth investing the time. Having said that though I couldn’t recommend any current harmony at the moment, although amazon did have £100 knocked off an okay one a few weeks ago.
I suppose if you ‘get’ the harmony then you don’t look back, maybe a bit like marmite.
The OP doesn’t need a harmony remote and I’m sure if the hotel mode menu can be set then there won’t be any need for extra button switching to display the humax correctly
Faust – 9 hours ago »
Well it sound like you have the Harmony controlling things very well indeed.
However Graham, honest answer here. Forget you are a techie for a minute. How difficult would that be for the ordinary non-techie person to programme the Harmony to this level, if indeed they could actually do it?
Which model of Harmony do you own?
It’s a Harmony Ultimate one. You don’t programme it in the sense that you actually have to write any code.
For example with a single PVR and a TV you just plug the Harmony into a PC using USB and log into the Harmony website using the provided software.
The first step is to tell the software which devices you have (Logitech have a massive database containing the commands for virtually any infra red controlled device).
In the above case you tell it the make and model of your PVR and TV.
You then create activities to use the devices you have added. The software asks various questions all you have to do is click on the appropriate button. Normally that’s all you need to do though you can assign any button on the remote to a command the device understands. For instance you might want a specific button to display the guide. Simply identify the button and tell it to send the guide command.
The more sophisticated models allow a macro (simply a series of commands to be attached to a button). For example for a Foxsat-HDR assign the schedule command followed by the red button to the guide button on the remote.
Example of the 2 activities you would add for the above simple system
Activity called “Watch My PVR”
Which devices does this activity use – TV and PVR
Which device handles the sound TV
Which input on the TV is used for PVR – HDM1
Activity called Watch My TV
Which devices does this activity use – TV
Which device handles the sound TV
Which input on the TV is used for TV
That’s it simply click on the synch button and your remote will download everything you need to your PC.
I aso have the Harmony Hub, which lets you use a tablet, PC or Smartphone and the Harmony software to use the same activities as the remote. Your tablet becomes a large remote control with touch screen buttons and will work from anywhere you have WiFi (Ideal for a remote TV)
The two are quite expensive but that’s down to the large number of devices. For 3 or 4 the cheaper remotes are more than adequate.
Say a TV, Amplifier, PVR and Blu-ray player.
If the only problem is directivity, then the Humax remote scheduling app (not paired) can also be used as a WiFi remote control for free if you have a smartphone or tablet.
damian – 11 hours ago »
Arghh! this thread has been hi-jacked, I only mentioned the harmony in post #3 as it could have been useful to send a sequence of commands for the OP if nothing else worked.
I don’t mind one bit now my problem is solved!
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