Official Logitech Harmony 900 thread - Page 19

I'm just a little giddy at the moment. Even though it took considerably longer than I thought it would (like 4 hours), I got the Harmony 900 set up; programmed and working the way we want it to. Yes.

I still have to tweak the GE QS page to select scenes and to mount the main blaster in front of my rack instead of sitting on a box, but the remote and RF is working as expected.

Speaking of the QS, I thought that it wasn't working with the 900 (primarily because the web set up said the 900 couldn't control it). As I was flipping through my QS manual, my son walked in. He picks up the remote, presses a couple of buttons and turns up the lights! Then he says, "Didn't you tell me not to read in the dark?" or something. "How did you do that?", I asked. He knew he had me so he clears his throat and says, "Dad, it so simple, 'Devices, Lights, +Brightness'.

He'd never seen the remote before and walks in and teaches me something new in 3 seconds. I felt so old...and grateful.

It also felt good when my wife took the 900 for a brief testdrive by pressing the 'Watch TV' button.

No more running to the equipment room to pause the movie or change the channel.

Thanks for the help.

I am considering getting the Harmony 900, but this new RF/IR solution doesn't work well for me, as my equipment is not centralised in one single cabinet.

Most of my AV equipment has an IR IN/OUT port. Can I use stereo (not mono) 2.5 to 3.5 adapter to connect directly the Harmony Blaster to my equipment? All recommendations here refer to mono adapters, but on my local shop, they only have stereo adapters.

As far as I know, only the Mono adapters will work with the 900

correct, I had a stereo 2.5 mm to 3.5 mm stereo adapter that I had bought a long time ago for an old cell phone...I used that along with the old style 890 blaster tip cables and it didn't work
changed the adapter to a mono adapter and the old cables then worked

same would apply with going directly to your equipment
it has to do with the internal hardware of the blaster, it's setup for mono connections

Thanks for the reply guys.

Just to confirm, does this mean that I need to get a 3.5" mono cable as well to connect the AV equipment? Also, does anyone know whether the IR emitters that you stick directly on your equipment from the Harmony RF extender are compatible with this, when connected to the mono 2.5" to 3.5" adapter?

as I said, I use the old style blaster tip cables (ie the ones that came with the 890's extender) along with the mono adapter from radioshack (search 274-327 for the adapter I'm using)...and I all works fine with the ir blasters stuck on my HD DVD and br player

I would recommend using a mono cable along with the mono adapter, I don't think a stereo cable would work, but I can't say for sure on that

Is the 900 able to charge thru USB?

No

the only harmony currently able to charge via USB is the 700, but it does not come with a charging base...it only charges via USB...it does come with an ac adapter block so you don't need a computer to charge it

keep in mind that the 700 does not use the same mini USB cable that almost all other harmony remotes use (I think the real old ones use something different)...the 700 uses micro USB

I have a Harmony 1000, but today I was setting up a Harmony 900 for my nephew. For some reason the "Return" button on the 900 didn't work with either the Pioneer VSX-21THX AVR or the Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu-ray player. Other buttons and touch screen commands that I tried worked as expected. Both the AVR and the BD are being controlled with RF commands.

Working in the setup menus without the "Return" button is good exercise when the component closet is in another room.

Any help or advise will be greatly appreciated by me, and my nephew will think I'm smarter than I am.

from my experience (harmony 1100 with a DMP-BD55, harmony 900 with a DMP-BD60), the return command does NOT get mapped anywhere by default

go into the setup, activities tab, customize buttons...then, on the 'hard buttons' tab, change the 'recall' button to be mapped with the 'return' command

Thanks 700 it is. Almost pulled trigger on a 900, too bad no usb charging.

really? why is USB charging that important? the 900 has a charging base

keep in mind the 700 is limited to 6 devices

Thanks for the information. You are a great resource.

Is it best to do a setup (utility) activity for each device (TV, AVR, DVD) and make the same change in each activity?

I have too many wall warts. USB is way more conveinent & alot less clutterfull

do NOT do a utility setup...that maps ZERO commands automatically for you.

add activity, select no - manual, then watch dvd, etc...

that will start you with the best button mappings, but it's always best to go back and review the mappings for things that might not have been mapped for you automatically, like the return command

understandable...but I would never want to limit my remote to 6 devices like the 700 does

and honestly, I put the 1100 remote charging base near my couch so it sits on the end table...always putting the remote within reach from my sitting position
I put the 900 remote charging base on my night table so it's within reach from my spot in bed...so it's not really mixed in with any other ac blocks....

charging by usb is nice, but unless you have a computer nearby, you're going to have to go to another room to get your remote...otherwise, you're going to be using the ac block anyway

Thanks again.

no problem

Should a fence sitter potentially considering this remote or something like it be scared right about now?

Being someone who programmed a couple of different Pronto remotes back before the Harmony remotes were as prolific as they are now, I'd call 4 hours something to be happy about... ESPECIALLY given the amount of automation in the end product.

It's more like 30 minutes to get it working, and then 3.5 hours to get it the way you want it to work.

It's easy to add devices and create activities. The real work comes in the next few days when you wish you had a certain command in one place and maybe another command was left out on another button. The tweaking is what takes the time.

^^ Good to know.

All told, how reliable and stable is the RF on this unit? I've seen a good number of complaints abroad that make me wonder what's going on.

Many systems are simple enough that 6 devices is plenty for a remote.
I purchased a 700 for my bedroom TV/bluray/DVD/STB and this remote is more than enough. In fact I prefer its preset hard commonly used activity buttons over the all screen activity buttons on the 900. They are much easier to access than looking at the activity screen.

Still, I like the 900 with my main system, where I need its RF capability to penetrate closed door cabinets and where I have to deal with more components.

Finally, as far as charging is concerned, the 700 doesn't need to be charged more than once every two weeks. Because you aren't accessing its screen commands very often, it's battery doesn't get drained so quickly as the 900.
So it really doesn't need to be continuously connected to a charging source.

gotcha on the smaller bedroom setup, but I put my 900 in the bedroom because of the built in sleep timer function that isn't on other remote models...for me, that's a MUST have for a bedroom remote

depends...how far will the remote be from the "blaster" during normal operation?
I can go 25 feet or so without any problems...normal operating distance for me is maybe 10 feet

I've upgraded from the One to the 900 (for RF, primarily) and now the 900 won't power my Sunfire TGP 3 AV processor on/off properly. The TGP's front panel lights up like it's going to turn on, but then it shuts off immediately after. I find this odd, since it's using the same PowerToggle command that the One used flawlessly. It won't stay on using the soft keys for the device directly either, whether it's Power or On or Off...

The extender is plugged directly into IR jack on the back of the TGP. Could this be an RF to IR problem? Or the use of the mono jack? I guess I could pull the jack and see if it works using the blaster...

Any ideas?

I would see if the blaster works first...I suspect that somewhere along the line (either the 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter or your 3.5mm cable is stereo and not mono...causing it not to work)

I couldn't have said it any better. After tweaking, the 900 works as I want it to except for the Light Controller. I think I have the 900 loaded with the wrong Lutron device. I have a Graphic Eye QS6 but the 900 only has buttons for "All lights on or off" and "all lights dim or up". The necessary extended tweaking I need to do here is very likely based on user error and not necessarily the fault of the 900 during setup.

This is basically what I'd be doing.