Harmony One: 3rd party software

no... you can only program it through the web interface...

imo, you are overstating the "limitations" of the harmony software, but to each his own...

Its not like Logitech is going to provide open source to there remote but I wish they did too. I have a list of things I would like to fix/change and i would even send it back to them afterwards....

Actually, there is an open source, cross-platform, SourceForge project for harmony programming called 'Concordance'. They don't yet support the One though.

http://www.phildev.net/harmony/index.shtml

I haven't tried it myself.

Jonathan

Thanks JR, I will check it out more later. I didnt see anything on the home page (although it was only a quick glance) mentioning whether it was actually open source or not.

Hi Tom,

All projects hosted on SourceForge are open source / gpl. I haven't downloaded the tar's, but they usually have pre-compiled versions for the supported OS's, as well as the source and make files.

Jonathan

damn I guess I was hoping for to much to also expect an MS language such as VB, C++, C# etc

Baladin,

I wouldn't be too hard on the Logitech folks. They created ( well, not really them ), a very sophisticated mass market product that works quite well for the vast majority of their customers.

Although the Concordance team would like nothing more than Logitech opening up the Harmony, I really don't think that's likely. The reason being is that once you publish an API, you either fully support it, and the possibly zillions of small developers, or you do it half baked by publishing some specs. If you do it half baked, the open source community will be in a rage about your buggy API. If you fully support it, it costs tons of money ... money you don't need to spend because you already provide a complete solution.

Why did they encrypt the communication on the new remotes? Well, I'd say it was to discourage the hacking of their remote. The much earlier Harmony's used XML configuration files. Those were replaced with undocumented binaries. Why ... because they don't want someone downloading and using a custom editor, and then coming to them for support. ie " Hey, Logitech ... my remote won't turn on anymore ... noooo, I didn't do anything 'funny'."

That said, in programming where there's a will there's a way. If enough bright minds concentrate on it, they'll hack it.

For you though, I'd consider a Pronto, or a URC if you can find a dealer that will agree to give you the editor ( it's their prerogative). I think this is the type of flexibility you're looking for. You might even consider the URC MX-450, which can be purchased from Amazon, that will let you program everything on the remote itself. This is the primary remote I use, and I'm completely happy with it.

Jonathan

I agree 110% with everything you said.

There is a way to keep a local copy of your setup, although it's just the file that gets loaded into the remote. Go to http://myremotesetup.com/ and when you do an update the config file gets downloaded and you can archive a copy and use it directly to update your remote any time.

Could you be more specific about its bad ergonomics? If nothing else, the Harmony One and its brother the 900, have the best ergonomics of any remote out there. While I recognize ergonomics is a personal thing and one size doesn't fit all when it comes to remotes, IMO the ergonomics of these two Logitech models sets them apart from most of the others. People complain a lot about some of software issues you have brought up, but few complain about its ergonomics.

I think he was talking about the software ergonomics, not the hardware. As in the software doesn't flow very well and has many options buried in odd places.

I would agree with you about the logitech software flow and hidden features. What makes the software even more of a problem is there is no good user guide available, either written or on line, that indexes where all of the options are located. That would be a major help. Still the software could be made a lot easier to use. One example of this is the reordering of your command buttons. It is a real pain the way you have to interchange each command with the next one,to move it up or down the list of soft buttons. It isn't intuitive and is very time consuming.

This really sucks. If you spend too much time cleaning up your soft buttons the software will timeout and you will lose your work. I was cleaning up my AVR device, which had like twelve pages, and clicked save only to find it had timed out...

Ouch! That must have been painful. My logitech software never timed out, because I was frequently updating my remote and checking my refinements. Whether you are using this software or a word processor, it makes sense to frequently save your work.