Official Logitech Harmony 650/600 remote thread - Page 8

I got a new Harmony 650, and connected it the way the manual said which connected it to myharmony.com. I couldn't get all of the settings to match what I was reading on the internet and later downloaded and tried the standalone software. A few days later I wanted to try another setting and the software started giving me the "unable to display content" error. After internet searching I found that most people needed to contact support to get this resolved, so I sent an email. This is the response that I got:

"Our engineers just created and launched the web interface because some of the computer-based Harmony Remote Software accounts for our remote models Harmony 600, 650 and 700 do not work as well with the software interface, as you have seen.

If you continue to manage your Harmony 650 remote using the web-based interface at www.myharmony.com, you should not get any more "Unable to Display Content" messages when you go to view your devices."

It seems that they are saying that their standalone software is not very good, and the website access is the new thing.

My new 650 has become very hard to wake up. I've had it less than a week, at first it would light up if you just moved it a bit. I thought I had it programmed well to start with and showed my wife how to operate it. I came back from a weekend trip and she said it had not been working. I tried it and it took a lot of shaking to make it wake up. I can't tell if this is the common battery contact problem or some other problem.

You should do whatever works for you of course, and the website is the new thing, but contrary to what they said, it sucks much worse than the standalone sw. Just try to adjust your backlight time or create a sequence or add more than 4 activities or add additional commands to the start or end of an activity or adjust delays or repeats. Ask them how to do those things on myharmony.com. It will be interesting to hear their response. During the beta they said none of those things were possible and that they never plan to add them.

It sounds to me like they've purposely broken the sw in order to force people into the new website. The day my 700 will no longer work with the old sw will be the day my remote goes on ebay. With 12 devices, 30 activities and 20 sequences, as well as tons of additional activity commands and custom timings, myharmony.com is too crippled to be at all useful to me. It does make me angry that they've made my $100+ remote less functional than my $15 remotes.

I have not had a good experience with my 650 so far. Well, the remote control works perfectly for controlling my devices, however, I have been fighting the battery terminal issue ever since I got the remote, which was for Christmas. Amazon has replaced it twice. I took up my concerns with Logitech, and they gave me 3 options:
1) Replace it with another Harmony 650
2) Downgrade and replace it with a Harmony 600
3) Give me 35 percent off on any Logitech product from their store

I'm a little on the frustrated side right now. Am I correct in assuming that the Harmony 600 will have the same issues that the 650 has? Regardless, I was somewhat troubled that they would want to downgrade my remote. I'm thinking of taking the 35 percent discount and waiting till my tax refund comes back, and picking up the Harmony One, and getting the RF extender.

Thoughts? Opinions? Comments? I'm open to them all.

Edit: I mentioned to the rep that the 600 wasn't even showing on their website... I wonder why that is?

I just talked through the process with Harmony phone support and after a slight glitch is creating and assigning to a new Input on the Pioneer 1014TX receiver (needed a DVR/VCR input) the remote works perfectly, and I have my activities in a logical flow and with customized activity names.

One big takeaway... the MyHarmony web set up is definitely not the way to go unless you have the simplest of set ups and no need or interest in customizing. Otherwise, going the software route is the way to go. And thumbs up to the customer support people (who can and will make changes to your set up).

Not entirely sure the value of the "color" screen versus b/w but perhaps if I start storing TV favorites with icons that may be cooler in color. And I guess the higher-end remotes do a better job of graphically representing activities and devices.

Hi, i just find your forum on google by searching information about the harmony 650. I want to know if i can use NiMH rechargeable batteries with the harmony.

It say in the quick start guide : Use only with alakaline batteries. There is a risk of using other batteries ?

Sorry for my english.

I doubt that it would be a problem to use NiMH batteries, but that depends a little on if the 650 has a cut-off voltage that is higher than the operating voltage of NiMH.

Alkaline batteries have a nominal operating voltage of 1.5V per cell, NiMH are at 1.2V per cell. However, alkalines have a steeper voltage drop-off as they age and can/will fall below 1.2V during their lifespan. NiMH have a much flatter discharge curve but in general also have a shorter life per charge, that is a fully charge NiMH will not last as long as a fresh alkaline would.

You should however be careful in any device with more than one battery to not allow NiMH batteries to discharge to a flat state. This is because invariably one battery will go flat before the other(s). When this happens, that battery will be driven in reverse polarity by the other battery(ies) which will effectively ruin the battery that has gone flat.

Stuck home in the cold weather yesterday so I spent a little time working on setup of my 650. I'm using the software program. I rearranged some of the "additional buttons" for my activities. Surprisingly many of the special buttons on my LG BluRay player remote are not included in the software so I had to learn those. I even got adventurous and added a sequence to get to the favorites in my cable DVR. Everything is working pretty well but I need to tweak the sequence, and turn off the assistant. Then I think it will be pretty foolproof for my wife to use.

I'm still trying to decide on a new sound system so adding that to the activities will upset the works again.

It would be better to use alkaline rechargeble battery or other kind?

Or maybe, i would continue use normal alkaline batteries ?

Thank you

Alkaline batteries are not rechargeable. The only rechargeables normally available in AA form factor are NiCad and NiMH.

Sorry, should correct the previous sentence. Lithium Ion batteries are also available in AA form factor, but they typically provide 3.7V and not the 1.2 to 1.5V typical for other rechargeables.

I made a few changes to my friends 650 (via the myharmony website) and I'm now finding it impossible to sync up to the remote.

It gets to "gathering account data" then just freezes, then I get the dreaded "unable to sync remote" message.

After listening to utter jibberish from Harmony phone support, it seems "MS Silverlight" is required to sync. (?)

Never heard of that before and I've been syncing my Harmony One fine for over a year...although that's through the 7.7 software, which I was told yday that they (Harmony) doesn't suggest.

Anyway, I finally got Silverlight installed today at work...after the typical MS one-hour jump-trough-hoops-extravaganza.

Hopefully it works now, we'll see when I get home.

Has anyone else encountered this? Didn't see it anywhere on this short thread.

And another thing: obviously the log-in for the software and browser are different, as I couldn't use my software credentials for my one to log-in to the browser area...I always thought the software "communicated" with the server and my settings were all stored on a cloud. Boy, guess not.

Should I configure my Harmony through the w-site then?

thanks,
James

Hi everyone,
I should be getting my 650 in the mail soon. Any advice for initial set-up and also avoiding any pitfalls? Any tips or tricks that have helped your set-up? Any advice would be deeply appreciated. This will be my first logitech universal and I'm very excited.

sodoto,
The 700 uses rechargeable AA's, so they should work fine in the 650 as well. I use rechargeables in all my harmonys.

mastermaybe,
Silverlight is only needed to play the help videos, although it's absence may cause other problems. There are 3 ways to program your remote: myharmony, members.harmonyremote and the standalone software. Two share the same config and login (members and standalone). Myharmony is completely seperate. So use myharmony or the other 2, but not all 3. I recommend avoiding myharmony because it is too severely limited to be of much use.

ucla,
The myharmony.com setup may be good enough for a beginner like you. But if you ever want any advanced functionality (more than 4 activities, sequences, custom delays, additional commands in activities, backlight adjustment), you'll have to start from scratch and use the standalone software. So consider skipping myharmony if you want full functionality. Also, many problems can be avoided if you always choose the manual activity setup option.

Good luck

Thanks mdavej. That is very helpful.

thanks mdavej:

Since I cannot sync from myharmony, I suppose I have no choice to use the software, just as I have without incident with my harmony one.

Yes, all of these avenues to program prolly appear massively confusing to the novice...I'm sure many think they're all interchangeable too.

I was on the phone again with Harmony and they again stressed working off myharmony, lol.

I installed silverlight, tried a different laptop, network, took down my firewall...everything, it simply won't sync up.

SO, I suppose I'll run the software and do the damn favorites (and everything else) all over again.


So odd. One week ago, same laptop, remote, web site, network...all is well.

One week later, all the same, just added favorites, and I cannot get it to work for love nor money. And YES, I even deleted all the favorites I added, thinking that may have caused an issue.

Wow. Worst part is, I could see a greener user just destroyed over something like this.

James

Pure speculation here, but my guess is myharmony.com will eventually replace everything. All exist today simply because they haven't been phased out yet. I just hope myharmony becomes as fully featured as the old software before that day comes. The thing that worries me is that during the beta, they said in no uncertain terms that those advanced features would never be added. I hope they just meant just for rev 1. But the current management loves to cut features.

So, I went through the entire REprocess of logging into the software to (again) set up the 650, which of course included redoing the favorite channels, buttons and activities.

thankfully, IT synced up with the remote.

I've never done the "web thing" till now, and of course the one time I tried, it was a nightmare.

SO. With 4 remotes and nothing but success with the software, I'll stick with it until Logi forces a change.

have a great weekend, everyone.

James

Will the software programming interface allow the remote to control inputs on multiple devices at the same time? I need to explain the question a little further-

Right now I have coax cable, HDMI from my DVR, and HDMI from my BluRay all connected to the back of my TV, and I have 3 activities set up, one that uses each of the 3 inputs. So when I start a different activity the remote goes through the steps to step the TV input to the right input for that activity.

I'm interested in adding a sound system of some sort, so far undecided, to the setup. No matter what hardware I contemplate, I will still have multiple inputs connected to the TV and multiple inputs connected to the receiver, and the remote will need to switch inputs in the TV and also switch inputs in the receiver. If I add a receiver to my programming will the software automatically allow me to define what input the TV needs to be set to and also allow me to separately define what input the receiver needs to be set to, and then automatically go through the sequence to set the TV input and then go through the sequence to set the receiver input, when each different activity is started?

Yes. The wizard asks which input each device in your activity uses and can handle more than 1. In my activities I specify an input for my TV, another for my receiver and a third for my HDMI switch. It will cycle each if necessary.

Your new receiver will likely have discrete input codes, meaning it can use input method 2 to go directly to a specific input with one command rather than cycling. This is always the preferred method if you device has discrete input commands. Many TV's also have discrete input commands like sony, toshiba, samsung, etc.

Thanks for that information. Right now I have the 650 set to cycle through the inputs on my Sony TV. I need to try it with the discrete input buttons, if for no other reason that it will work faster. It takes it awhile to cycle through all of the many inputs that the TV has.

Please excuse me if this is a really dumb question, but what are discreet input buttons? I am waiting for my 650 to arrive and will be setting it up soon.

Never mind. I found a great article on engadget hd about it. It make sense now.

Well it seems odd to me that my TV has different ways of switching inputs-
with the original remote you push "input" and it brings up a menu with a list of the inputs, then you scroll through the list and pick the one that you want. It has 9 or 10 different inputs to scroll through. I finally got the Harmony set up to do the scrolling correctly but it takes several seconds to slowly scroll through the whole list. But later on I found out that the Logitech database apparently has additional commands that you can use to take the tv input straight to a certain input port with just one command. I think if I switch the Harmony over to this system then it would switch quicker.

I've been looking into various sound systems and I found some with remotes that have a whole array of buttons to switch inputs- there is a button for each of the different inputs, so for any input you want you just push the button for that input. With a device like that you know that the Logitech database will have the codes to go straight to any of the different inputs.

Many devices have commands that aren't on their remotes. Receivers typically have hundreds of commands that aren't on the remote. They exist for use with universal remotes or RS-232 control. Since your sony tv has discrete input commands, you definitely need to use them.

If you want to know what devices have discretes, you can't just look at the remotes. In rare cases they're documented in the manual. Otherwise just ask on this board, hifi-remote.com or remotecentral.com. They have huge databases of all commands from all devices and can usually tell you exactly what commands are possible.

The harmony database isn't a very good source for discretes. A lot are in there, but many are either missing or associated with a incompatible device.

Thank you for your answer !

Thanks. This helps a lot!

I think there is a way around the "one shot deal", but you need to have another remote that supports more than 5 devices. I have an old 520 (supports 12 devices) which is only being used to control a TV and PVR. I created a new account for the 520 and added the 7 devices I wanted on the 600. I used the "Replace Remote" function to move the configuration to the 600. If, at some point in the future, I want to add more devices to the 600, I don't see any reason that I can't just repeat this process.

It's a bit of a PITA to reconfigure the 520, but it lets me use the 600 I got for $50 to control all my devices rather than spending three times that on a One to get support for more than 6 devices.

I switched my 650 to use discrete input switching commands using "method 2". This is certainly faster than waiting for it to cycle through the different inputs and this should make it more reliable.

The last thing I'm thinking about is checking if my Motorola cable DVR can use discrete on/off commands. I prefer to have it left on when leaving its activity because it complains if you tell it to turn off while it is recording something. OTOH sometimes it might be off when switching into that activity and with a discrete "on" command I could tell it to always turn on, without risk of telling it to turn off at the wrong time. I'm not sure if the harmony database contains discrete "on" command codes for it though.

I finally got the remote assistant to stay off. It seems that you can go into the software and change one thing, then go through and change other things, and some of the changes might not stay changed. This happened to me with the remote assistant and also with my previous setting to leave my DVR on.

Cable boxes and cable DVRs don't have discrete on/off. In the device setup make it "always on". That's the easiest way to handle it.

I can't get my 650 to control volume of my receiver.
I just wired up the receiver today, and added it to 3 activities. The 650 controls switching of the inputs on the receiver, but doesn't control volume, it sends the volume control commands to the TV instead.
If I go into devices and choose the receiver, then it will control volume of the receiver. When I go back to activities then it sends volume commands to the TV.

I program the 650 using the software interface. I have double checked that it says "I use my AV receiver to control volume" for all activities.

I have a Sony EX500 TV and a Denon AVR-591 receiver.
activity 1: TV tuner, tv connects to AVR with digital optical cable
activity 2: Motorola DVR connected to TV with HDMI, tv connects to AVR with digital optical cable
activity 3: LB BluRay player connected to AVR with HDMI, AVR connects to TV with HDMI.