Harmony 880 Official Thread. For all info and FAQs - Page 5

UPDATE: For some reason, after my last remote update, these buttons finally just went away. Totally bizarre. Sorry for wasting your time!


For the most part, I have my 880 working the way I want it to. I do have one problem/question concerning custom buttons for the LCD screen. I have a watch DVR activity set up which uses my TV, Series 2 Tivo, and Denon AVS-2807 reciever. The problem has to do with what shows up on the LCD screen:

Page 1:

1: A 2: B
3: List 4: Clear
5: E 6: Tivo
7: LiveTV 8: ThmbUp

Page 2:

1: ThmbDn 2: Effect
3: Aspect

What I have on the actual custom buttons page looks like this:

1. List
2. Tivo
3. LiveTV
4. ThmbUp
5. ThmbDn
6. Aspect
7. Effect

I don't really want the A, B, or E options on the menu, but I can't seem to figure out how to get rid of them. They don't show up in the custom buttons section for the LCD, and they don't appear to be coming from any other devices. Is it possible to get rid of those "custom" buttons on the LCD?

What is in the other columns of the activities custom button section?

The Activities feature can control more than one device, the A, B, & E is probably an option for another device connected with that activity.

Cheers

Thanks GeoWorm. After my last remote update, the buttons magically disappeared. I don't know why they didn't do that on subsequent refreshes, but at this point, I'm not going to question it!

There is about a page of posts on the HP 1080P DLP owners thread discussing how to get the Harmony 880 to work with these sets. The Harmony web site defaults to using on-screen menus to change inputs, but the HP supports discrete codes for this after it gets a firmware upgrade to D36.

I've got an ancient Mitsubishi projection TV, that (as far as I know) doesn't allow for direct input selection; you've got to keep pressing the "Source" button on the remote until the input you want shows up. Does anyone know how the Harmony would handle this?

It should handle it fine. Assuming the TV is in the Harmony database it will know how many inputs there are and in what order. From that the remote can automatically 'press' the source button the required number of times to get to the required input.

~Ky

On my set you also have to cycle through the inputs using the manufacturer's remote, but for each Activity the Harmony always manages to find the correct one. You might want to call Harmony Tech Support to make sure your's would operate the same way.

Hey folks,

I bought an 880 for my in-laws and they are technophobic. I'm trying to setup a custom Activity - is this possible? Here's the scenario:

They have an HD DishTV reciever (Echostar 6000U) and a gen2 TiVo. To watch HD content, they have to switch between SD/HD on the sat receiver, and change the Video input on their TV. What I'd like to do is setup Watch HDTV and WatchSDTV Activities. Is this possible? If not, is there something I'm missing here?

Thanks,
Z

That's easy enough. When you do the setup for "Watch HDTV" and "Watch SDTV" make sure you specify the right TV input for that activity.

Assuming that the SD/HD button on the satellite receiver is a toggle function, you need to pick one of the two activites to customize with a special infrared command at activity start and stop. During the activity setup on the web interface you can tell it you want to add extra commands and have it send the infrared "SD/HD" button command at the start of the activity and also at the end of the activity. That way the satellite receiver always returns to the same TV mode.

Thanks Jeremy - I'll give that a shot.

Z

Ok I have a 880 and it seems to be ok. My problem is that I can never get past the Test Drive.
Congratulations, you have finished setting up one touch access to these activities:

At the bottom I get Order Now and Convert radio buttons. But then I press Convert I just end up in a endless LOOP. Over and over.

Login Information
Complete the following information: (page 2)
What is your level of knowledge (so we can better assist you)? (page 3)
Complete the following information: (page 4)
Connect the remote using the USB cable provided.Click Next to continue.(page 5)
Connectivity Successful Communication with the Harmony 880 has been confirmed. (page 5) [Next]
Takes me back to the Dang http://members.harmonyremote.com/Eas...tDriveShow.asp
Page. This is very worrisome to me. It's not as if I am not use to installing software and hardware as I make a good living doing this. But this has me pulling my hair out.

If I click on the Logitech Harmony Remote in under Start > Programs it only opens a icon in the Information Tray (Windows XP Pro) and I have 3 options About... | Preferences... | and Exit .

The software is version 4.4.0

I took the test drive before buying the remote to see if it supported my devices and decided to buy it.

Is there any newer software?


My system is:
Win XP Pro with Service Pack 2

I had a problem like this when I first got my remote. I called tech support, and they did something on their site, and I was then treated as a regular, and not just someone testing the system.

- I spent 5 minutes trying to convert my Test Drive into a full account. Instead of wasting your time calling tech support, I would create a new account from scratch. It's a lot easier.

The 880 is on sale using two codes from Dell:

http://www.dealcatcher.com/index.asp...10&c=63359&o=1

$154 + free shipping

Is anyone using this with the MOXI DVR? I have that with charter cable, and its in the databse, but I'm just wondering how well it works with it.

- I haven't seen too many mentions of that particular DVR on the AVS site at all. Even if the Moxi DVR isn't fully supported in the Harmony default profile, there isn't any reason you can't learn IR commands from the original remote. Once you set up the device, you can then tweak the response time/repeats to get the Harmony to function virtually identically to the original remote.

Just got my harmony 880 and I love it but my "play Xbox" activity is giving me problems... everything turns on correctly and right inputs, but for me to have any control I have to go to Devices then Xbox for the remote to work

Seems like the Activity is not ending on the correct device?

Should I need to go in and add each Xbox code into the activity?

nm, got it all working... now just need to tweak timings and repeats. I removed the devices and re-added, ect...

anyone have any timing/reset advice for any of the goodies in my sig

Just got a new iMac intel duo core...what worked with a G4 before now is dead on an intel Mac ,c'mon Logitech update it already.

Ive somehow managed to work my way up to eight remotes so i figured its time to get a solid universal remote. From what ive seen this is the premier as far as universal remotes go. But before i make the plunge there are some questions i cant seem to find the answer to. For one, a problem ive had with other universal remotes is that the functions that i really need arent available. For example will the harmony remote be able to emulate the "Guide" button for a digital cable box? And will i be able to control my On Demand services? Also for something like my xbox remote, is there any way that i can program the "Display", "Title" and "Back" buttons? Im a heavy xbmc user so i will actually need all of the buttons on the remote. Thanks for any help.

It can do everything you asked.

Is there any way to have a cusom for one activity and not the others?

On my watch TV I would like an option for Input so I could get to the others without Devices/ect... also on my Xbox activity I would like to add a Reciever InputTV.

When I try to add either, it adds to all activities that have the TV or reciever and it moves my other important customs down? (at least in Xbox and Xbox 360)

Learn the commands directly in each device you need it in. For example, if you want the tv's PIP button available in a couple of activites, learn the command in each device for the activities in question. It is repetitive, but gives you more flexibility.

That will not work for the tv input because like I said TV and Reciever is all that is on and all my other activities have TV, so input will be added....

However if I could learn my Reciever's discrete TV input to my Xbox that may work, but have no clue how get the discrete setting.

Oh well, I may just use the device tabs which are pretty easy. I rarely use either command in question

Well, just ordered from Buy retail. They are down to $140 down. Hopefully there won't be any issues with them.

PhatheadWRX,

I see that you are an XBMC user. One thing you might be interested in that I've been planning to do (when I have enough free time) is to replace my Watch DVD, Play CD, and Play Game activities with dedicated My Videos, My Music, My Weather, and My Programs activities that would have the extra commands to turn on the Xbox and navigate to the appropriate page. I have been planning to add that XIR remote kit (to turn on the Xbox), anyway.

I have XIR and love it (try and get the version 2 beta, has more features)! Also with the XIR is very easy to set up with the 880. Just go to device more options, power, "I have an on and an off button" then set the button to what you set in the XIR software (I do menu for on and 0,0 for off).

Sounds good about the game activities. I would just try to add some RCA 5 protocols then map them to XBMC.ActivateWindow(MyPictures/Programs/Music...) in keymap.xml

I just wanted to update anyone that has an 880 and has issues with the LCD screen being washed out and white smears or blotches on it.

I got my 880 back in December for Christmas and had emailed tech support back in January about the screen being washed out. They said they would send out a new one, but I held off because I was concerned I would just get another one with the same issue. With a 1 year warranty, I figured I had plenty of time to wait and see what popped up in the forums.

Well, not much had been posted in the forums about this lately. The last things I had seen were people saying their replacement remotes had the same problem, and another person saying he had seen every remote he installed have the same issue. I decided to take the plunge and see what the current status was.

A few weeks ago I contacted them again becaue the screen seemed to be getting worse and I figured it had been enough time for them to either figure out the issue and fix it, or for the affected batch of remotes to be sold out. The person I spoke with on the phone said that the issue was known by Logitech, it had been fixed and that the new remote won't have the problem.

They sent me a new one last week and the screen is perfect. Absolutely no fading and the contrast on the screen is much better. The blue on the top is a deep blue, not a faded blue like my last remote. Also, channel logos and the activity graphics are much easier to see. It's almost like the earlier remote had the contrast set way too high and it was "blooming" because the whites were so high and it washed everything out.

It also looks like the new remote came with the "new and improved" charging cradle, however, it hardly works when compared to my original cradle that seems to be the older design. (The new cradle has the smaller charging pins and they seem firmer - the old cradle has the bigger pins that aren't quite as springy.) I am going to keep the old cradle, as I can lay the remote in it and get it to charge every time without having to fiddle with it. The new cradle is so touchy that if I barely brush by the remote it stops getting a charge. It seems that the new cradle has a lot of play in it - I can "wiggle" the remote and move it around quite a bit. In the old cradle, I really can't move it around much when it is laying in it - it doesn't have as much play.

One thing that is interesting is they want me to ship the old remote back in a USPS bubble envelope (to keep my costs as low as possible) with the charging cradle and usb cable. However, they don't have any of my credit card info - what would they do if I didn't ship it back? Now, I am an integrous person and I am going to ship it back, but I was surprised that they shipped me a new remote without a way to charge me if I didn't send my old remote back. I guess they could bill me, but I doubt they would actually send it to a debt collector for a remote that is broken and probably costs them 50$ to make. It would cost them more to try and collect on it.

So if you have issues with your LCD - call Logitech and get a new one - it will most likely work. I can tell you that the new screen makes the remote a pleasure to use.

Bryan

bacevedo - Thats GREAt news, if in fact the problem is fixed.

One more topic, that no one brings up all that much, when can we expect a firmware/software update? Any insiders frequent this forum?

Bryan,
Can you please post an update in a couple weeks to let us know if in fact the LCD issues don't return after a bit? This is good news. Thanks for the info.