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Faust – 1 hour ago »
Geez a Lou, all this long press, short press, this press, that press, allocate this button or that button. The device is supposed to make life easier not demanding a high mensa score just in order to use it.
You just can’t beat one remote for each device, keeping it simple is often the best policy.
The opposite is the case especially when you have a lot of kit with a complex connection arrangement.
My better half can turn on the system and then watch the desired source with a single button using the harmony remote. Give her all the remotes she wouldn’t know where to start and neither would my 19 year old grandson. I have omitted my projector remote from the pictures.
To watch say My HDR-1000S requires The HDR-1000S, the Yamaha AV remote and the TV remote. One remote on the Chair consider what you would need to have at hand as shown in the following photos. 😳
[attachment=67844,1061]
Faust – 3 hours ago »
Geez a Lou, all this long press, short press, this press, that press, allocate this button or that button.
It does sound rather complicated – but once you get your head around it and get it all set up, it is amazingly simple. I am down from 4 remotes to one. Harmony CS are very professional and will spend all the time you need to get you set up. Believe me (as a complete non techie) it is well worth the journey. R-
I accept that it can take a bit of time and effort to set up one of these remote controls exactly the way you want it but it is certainly worth it. Mine is set up with 11 activities controlling 9 devices and I have a tray full of native remotes that I can just leave to fester.
RogerB – 5 hours ago »
Faust – 3 hours ago »
Geez a Lou, all this long press, short press, this press, that press, allocate this button or that button.
It does sound rather complicated – but once you get your head around it and get it all set up, it is amazingly simple. I am down from 4 remotes to one. Harmony CS are very professional and will spend all the time you need to get you set up. Believe me (as a complete non techie) it is well worth the journey. R-
It sounds complicated because it is. I know because I ordered one from Amazon a couple of years back. After a strong drink and a couple of aspirins I managed to programme it. However, programming it was the easy part as I couldn’t then remember what controlled what.
The wife wouldn’t entertain it and got all the remotes back out – all 7 of them. In the end I had to agree with her and back it went. At least with the individual remotes they all have a name on them and are different shapes, so pretty hard to get it wrong.
Take our LG TV. Now WebOS has to be the best TV OS out there. The LG remote (wireless) acts like a mouse, one shake and a pointer comes on the screen. At the bottom of the TV all your ‘cards’ appear with labels e.g. HDMI.1 HDMI.2 etc. then all the app cards. All you need to do is point the cursor at a card and press OK.
From that one hub once you make your selection you then pick up the remote for whatever your selection is e.g. Freesat, Youview etc.
Our Sonos speakers are controlled from an app on your phone.
Both the wife and I can run this lot like a well oiled machine. It’s simplicity personified.
All remote controls share the same basic set of buttons such as Play, Pause, Record etc. And then you have the buttons which do approximately the same thing but are labelled differently such as Function or Opt+, they can be allocated to the same button regardless of which activity is in use. Anything more esoteric can be set as a soft key with the exact name as used by the native remote such as MyView or Zoom for Youview devices.
When I got my first Harmony I wasted time trying to make it look and work like the OTA remote control I used for my Topfeld 5800. Then I realised better to adapt to the Harmony design rather than try to fit a round peg in a square hole.
gomezz – 1 hour ago »
All remote controls share the same basic set of buttons such as Play, Pause, Record etc. And then you have the buttons which do approximately the same thing but are labelled differently such as Function or Opt+, they can be allocated to the same button regardless of which activity is in use. Anything more esoteric can be set as a soft key with the exact name as used by the native remote such as MyView or Zoom for Youview devices.
When I got my first Harmony I wasted time trying to make it look and work like the OTA remote control I used for my Topfeld 5800. Then I realised better to adapt to the Harmony design rather than try to fit a round peg in a square hole.
And how would you adapt the Harmony to work with the LG? Don’t forget this is a wireless remote not IR and acts just like a mouse complete with cursor and includes voice control.
Then there’s the Sonos, these are controlled via an app on your Smartphone or tablet. You select all the features from the app e.g. music stored locally either on a NAS or computer. You then have all your music services e.g. Spotify etc.
I believe the near future is not the Harmony but voice control.
I understand that adding a Harmony Hub can deal with wireless devices and the Sonos. Voice control is not something I will ever allow in the house.
One of the activities I have set up is to switch to the Chromecast dongle so I can cast to my big TV from my tablet and not really an issue then using the app on that (eg iPlayer) to control playback.
Faust – 3 hours ago »
gomezz – 1 hour ago »
All remote controls share the same basic set of buttons such as Play, Pause, Record etc. And then you have the buttons which do approximately the same thing but are labelled differently such as Function or Opt+, they can be allocated to the same button regardless of which activity is in use. Anything more esoteric can be set as a soft key with the exact name as used by the native remote such as MyView or Zoom for Youview devices.
When I got my first Harmony I wasted time trying to make it look and work like the OTA remote control I used for my Topfeld 5800. Then I realised better to adapt to the Harmony design rather than try to fit a round peg in a square hole.
And how would you adapt the Harmony to work with the LG? Don’t forget this is a wireless remote not IR and acts just like a mouse complete with cursor and includes voice control.
Then there’s the Sonos, these are controlled via an app on your Smartphone or tablet. You select all the features from the app e.g. music stored locally either on a NAS or computer. You then have all your music services e.g. Spotify etc.
I believe the near future is not the Harmony but voice control.
A Amazon Echo can voice control the logitech harmony hub. Some models can also use bluetooth.
https://support.myharmony.com/en-gb/harmony-experience-with-amazon-alexa
I use Alexa to control my TV and Prime viewing. All the basic functions are there and it is very easy to set-up. R-
gomezz – 2 hours ago »
I understand that adding a Harmony Hub can deal with wireless devices and the Sonos. Voice control is not something I will ever allow in the house.
One of the activities I have set up is to switch to the Chromecast dongle so I can cast to my big TV from my tablet and not really an issue then using the app on that (eg iPlayer) to control playback.
But we appear to be reinventing the wheel here. The Sonos app is fully featured allowing you to make playlists, select by artist, albumn, or song. You can choose to play the same song in different rooms or different songs in different rooms. I fail to see how. Harmony remote or hub could compete with that and why would you want to.
I’d be interested to learn if the Harmony can supply voice search and control like the LG remote does too.
The hub could control your Sonos too:
https://support.myharmony.com/en-us/harmony-experience-with-sonos
It’s all a matter of personal preference. You don’t mind multiple remotes, others prefer an all-in-one. I’m in the latter camp. 😉
aldaweb – 2 hours ago »
The hub could control your Sonos too:
https://support.myharmony.com/en-us/harmony-experience-with-sonos
It’s all a matter of personal preference. You don’t mind multiple remotes, others prefer an all-in-one. I’m in the latter camp. 😉
1. Using the Harmony Hub for Sonos is simply replacing the Sonos app with the Harmony app. Having watched a couple of YouTube videos of the Harmony/Sonos app I’m firmly of the view the Sonos app is superior.
2. The Hub uses the cloud, so if you lose the Internet you lose access to all your devices.
3. The guy on the video does say – the Harmony Hub is not easy to setup and needs patience, but you’ll get there in the end.
I don’t think the Hub is my cup of tea and the other Harmony products wouldn’t be a good fit with some of my devices – mainly Sonos.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it seems to be my best option.
Actually the LG Magic Remote can control all the kit under my TV, i.e. couple of PVRs Blu-Ray player, surround sound system etc. I did try using this to control my devices when I first got the TV. The experiment lasted all of 1 day before I was back to a dedicated remote for each device. I just don’t like a universal controller.
You sum it up nicely Faust – it’s all down to personal preference, the type of functionality we desire and the degree of patience we possess. R-
For what it is worth I don’t get the point of Sonos and similar systems. They are no match for a proper hi-fi system and plenty of other, cheaper ways of low-fi listening to stuff all around the house and down the garden even.
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