Technical Question on Hard Button Remotes

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42

I guess I’ll just try it and see what happens. Thanks for your patience.

43

Ok, I tried this. Added a room and device for my Harmony Hub. Created an activity in the Room on Roomie with the same name as Harmony activity (in my case Watch Roku). I can use Roomie to now start or turn off that activity. Good. I then add the Roku device in this room to Roomie and then include it in the Watch Roku activity as the Primary. Now instead of a blank screen when I start Watch Roku on Roomie, I get the control buttons for Roku and they work.

However, my Marantz receiver in this room in from 2005 and has no IP control. So I can’t add it to Roomie as an IP device and use it in the Watch Roku activity as the Volume device. From this thread it sounds like there is no way to send the volume up/down command via IR through the Hub except using the Harmony remote, which kind of defeats the purpose of setting this up on Roomie in the first place.

So can I set up an IP addressable IR blaster in this room and control my Marantz volume directly from Roomie?

44

Yes, or you could use an IP serial adapter and the AVR’s RS232 connection and probably get volume feedback in Roomie as well. You’re also right, if you can’t fully control all your devices with Roomie, it doesn’t make much sense to add it to that room alongside the Harmony.

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45

Here is how I understand the intended usage scenario for the Roomie / Harmony integration:

  1. You have Roomie to control most / all of your activities, including all of the advanced capabilities that Roomie offers.

  2. You have a Harmony hub and corresponding remotes that control one / some / most / all of your activities.

  3. You wish to have a hard button control option for certain, generally basic, capabilities such as volume control, play, pause, shuttle control, channel up / down, etc.

  4. You create an activity in Harmony that supports, at minimum, the capabilities you want to access via hard button.

  5. You create an activity in Roomie with the exact same name as the activity created in Harmony. This activity will be the activity through which most / all capabilities can be controlled.

6 When you switch activities in Roomie this causes Harmony to switch activities to the corresponding Harmony activity.

  1. When you switch activities in Harmony this causes Roomie to switch activities to the corresponding Roomie activity

  2. With both activities in synch you can now control the capabilities through Roomie or through the Harmony remote.

  3. For example, you switch to “Watch Roku” activity in Roomie. It switches and so does Harmony. Now, for example, you want to pause whatever is playing. You can hit pause in the Roomie app, which will directly send an IP command to your Roku player. Or, you can hit pause on the Harmony remote, and this will RF to the Harmony hub which will then send an IP command to your Roku player.

  4. However, if Roomie isn’t configured to control a device, it won’t be able to control it. This is because it does not send any controls, such as powering up an older AVR, “through” the Harmony so that Harmony can then execute the command. The only awareness between Harmony and Roomie is activity selection and (maybe, I don’t know, since I don’t have this set up) activity state. Harmony does not send device commands through Roomie. Roomie does not send device commands through Harmony. All device commands from Roomie are sent directly to the device via Roomie. All device commands from Harmony are sent directly to the device via Harmony.

Hope this helps. It is possible I have it wrong since I actually do not have Harmony set up, but this is my understanding based on what I have read.

46

Here is how I understand the intended usage scenario

This is correct.