I don’t have Harmony, but open to getting one. What is the feature set supported by this new integration? Is it bi-directional activity synchronization? Anything else? How does, say, a hard button volume command work? Does the command reach the intended device (say, my Denon AVR) from Harmony or does the Roomie integration act as a relay and the command comes from Roomie. I assume the prior, but was hoping for the former to avoid setting up duplicate activities beyond a “shell” activity in Harmony. Though I guess as I type this it seems like it probably isn’t logical that this could be achieved without duplicate activities (e.g. one in Roomie and corresponding one in Harmony).
Just installed the latest version with Harmony remote integration, wow it works great…RR is the best home automation app period !
Can’t get Roomie to auto discover the Harmony Hub. Tried factory resetting the remote. Any advice?
This is a feature I’ve certainly been waiting for. Definitely helps with the grandparents/parents when they come over.
Thx!
I encountered some guy in support who had a crazy network with separate VLANs, etc and that caused discovery trouble. To the extent you have configured your network for wild and crazy things, lots of auto-discovery scenarios will have trouble. Discovery is based on multicast being entirely free and open between your iOS device and the target to be discovered, so you will need to ensure that for this and almost every other device.
So, looks like Harmony-Sync is out of Beta and working.
< V6.2 includes many new features such as Harmony Synchronization >
Thanks for the report that it is working nicely.
Also, thanks to Will and his team for making this happen.
I finally just upgraded my old Harmony-650 (IR based) to a Harmony-Elite and Hub. Maybe I’m ready to try all this [Simple-Control] … I mean Roomie again ?
Glad it’s working for you…have you tried bi directional as is if I press say watch dish in RR as a activity it dims my light via ISY and then activities harmony activity which sends IR codes to TV and sets the remote buttons to dish Setup…on the reverse if I press the watch dish activity button on my harmony remote it would be nice to see if it can start RR activity…this way it be bi directional…and RR can be used to control ISY devices…also opens up a huge list of devices that are compatible with RR
You mean “compatible with Harmony”. Our compatibility is a vast superset of theirs, so presumably the idea is you want to shoe horn us into their activity launches because they’re missing a bunch of stuff. That is something we could add.
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That will be great we (RR) can really make a difference due of lack of features in HR…and this will then put to bed the need for any hard button remote.
Further to my comment earlier, if you can map an individual button on harmony remote to execute a RR activity start as in activate when we “soft press” Harmony button, and stop deactivate RR activity when we do “hard Press” that would be an absolute Harmony killer and we can just use our harmony remote ( just as piece of hardware as requested in this forum as a hard button remote ) and use it with RR
I have been searching around but I am still confused as to how exactly Harmony integration works. I get that all one has to do is make sure the activities are named the same and it should just work. Ok. So how does it work exactly? If I initiate an activity from the Harmony remote does it run the activity commands from the Harmony or from Roomie? How are button presses like volume sent? Most of my devices are IP controlled and Harmony IP supports is not good. Would this integration allow me to use the Harmony without having to use it’s hub to send IR commands? I already have an iTach and my setup works flawlessly as is. The problem is when I have guests/roommates that don’t have iOS devices they have no way of controlling the system plus many people just want an actual remote to turn on the TV and do basic things.
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We don’t magically make Harmony suddenly able to IP control something. So if your problem is “Harmony does not support IP control of X and Y”, then you will still have that problem and that is unsolvable at the individual button level.
- When Roomie launches an Activity, the same Activity launches on the Harmony side, and Harmony will run whatever commands it thinks are necessary to accomplish that. Depending on your configuration, you may want to adjust which commands are sent on each side or the timing thereof.
- When Harmony launches an Activity, it executes all of its commands as per usual and Roomie simply sets its current Activity to the same-named Activity thus avoiding any overlapping commands.
Buttons inside an Activity are unaffected and totally independent. Bi-directional Activity synchronization is the critical aspect/goal here.
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Hi, any luck in progressing further on this and if it can in can be in a future release ?
Does this mean that when an activity is initiated through Harmony, Roomie basically skips all the commands for that activity and just changes the state of that activity and make it active to stay in sync with Harmony?
Besides activities sync which BTW works great, Another great feature which I think will drive more and more users towards RR is if we can call device level commands from RR using the Harmony Hub as a IR transmitter this add-on will be fantastic and will let us ditch Harmony app all together.
I am considering purchasing a Harmony Hub based remote to use in conjunction with my Roomie V6 setup. I am reluctant to do so since it seems any time an activity is initiated from Roomie, Harmony would re-send the commands to the devices. Is there a way to suppress commands sent from Harmony to my devices when an activity is launched via Roomie? If not currently, are there plans to? I imagine this is a limitation on the Harmony API. Otherwise, is there a way for Roomie to send the start activity commands when an activity is started via Harmony? That way all the start commands are sent only once by Roomie. Finally - is this behavior applicable to both activity start and stop commands? Thanks
With the addition of the harmony elite, is it isolated to the elite or will anything the harmony software accepts work? Like the companion remote, smart remote or even an older ultimate/touch? Does it also include the pro or 2400 model (the upgraded elites…the pro just uses more devices and the 2400 has more connectors on the hub.
One last question. RR can have unlimited devices, harmony hubs alone can do 8, the elites 15 if RR is connected to the hub does that continue the unlimited devices or does the hardware cut it off? I think the cut off from harmony is software based through the remotes ( meaning all the hubs below the 2400 hardware wise are he same if that helps).
Thanks, i have a harmony setup but looking to move into RR, integration is ideal of course since i really dint need to change much.
It should work with any Harmony system that uses the Hub device. Remember, Roomie only works with Harmony activities. There is no device control or commands. That still needs to be done by the Harmony remote. it does support On/Off Start/Stop activity commands.
Clarifying, Roomie controls a wider set of devices than Harmony did. The correct deployment scenario for the Harmony Sync is to have Activities in both systems with the same names that control the relevant devices. Roomie syncs the state of those Activities, and in general both systems can be used simultaneously.
See above in this thread for much more detail on these topics.
Will, thanks for clarifying. I have to admit, I haven’t come up with a use case to use the Harmony sync. I do have a couple of hubs left in my home but I’ve completely replaced the other two with Roomie.
Just to make sure I understand, if I have a room called Office. And in the office I have a TV, amp, AVR, and Roku 4K all currently controlled via IR or IP by the Harmony Hub and Harmony remote. And on the Harmony Remote I have an activity called Watch Roku that powers on the TV, brings up the Roku Home Page, turns on the AVP and selects the Roku HDMI input and turns on the amp. So the steps would be the following:
On Roomie I would add the Office as a Room. I would then add the Harmony Hub as a device, which I can discover via IP scan. I would then add the AVP and the Roku as devices in Roomie. I don’t need the TV or Amp because they are just power on/off via the Harmony activity.
Adding the Roku is straight forward, as it is IP controlled and Roomie will discover it and control it directly, I assume.
However, the AVP is an older model and needs IR control. How do I get that IR control?
In a Roomie only system, I would simply add an IP controlled blaster. But how do I do it with the Harmony system? Can I use the Harmony Hub instead of the blaster, so I use the IP address for the Hub and then designate which cable from the hub (I think there are only 2) should be used for the AVP? Then I can control the AVP volume and other functions from the Roomie UI but using the Hub for sending the IR commands?
Once I’ve added these two devices and got them working, I then add an activity to Roomie for the Office called Watch Roku and in Activity setup I would add the Roku as the primary device and the AVP as the volume device.
Now if I run the Watch Roku activity from Roomie, it sends the start activity command to the Harmony Hub which executes all the start command for that activity - turns on TV, amp, AVP, selects proper HDMI input, and sends a Home command to the Roku. Now I can use the Roomie UI to control the AVP volume, use the Roku UI to navigate the Roku menu to select the show I want to watch and then use Roomie to control playback, stop, FF, etc?
Is this basically how it works?
And if I get to a new app on the Roku and I need to navigate an on screen keyboard to enter my email and password to sign into the app, can I use the Harmony hard remote to do that? Not all apps on Roku support the Roomie keyboard.
Let me know where I am incorrect so I can get this straight and I’ll give it a try over the weekend. I don’t need to have it work this way in my setup (Harmony remote in Office is sufficient) but I’d like to try it just so I know how it works.
OMG TLDR;
Actually, I did fully read it, but it’s a lot of confusion. Go back through this thread, especially my post here:
This is a very simple to setup, very focused feature. Don’t make it more complicated than it is.