Harmony Controllers: IR and RF

The H890 comes with a RF receiver that will "blast" you equipment with IR signals with the supplied IR repeaters. Since the RF receiver will be located with your equipment, there is no need to run any cables through you room like you would need to with the H880 and a separate IR repeater system. With the H880 and separate IR repeater combo, you would have to have the IR eye sensor installed in the front of the room.

In my opinion, going with the H880 and separate IR repeater system will cost MORE than just going with the H890 since the H890 is a complete package and more suitable for your needs and economically.

I'd suggest the URC MX-850 with a MRF250. Total cost will be ~$300.

Check out Amazon's price for the 890. When you figure in the cost of the RF repeater (around $100), their price is very good.

Randy

The advantage of RF over an IR repeater is that you don't have to keep pointing the remote.

The advantage of an IR repeater over an RF remote is that it will work with any remote.

I did IR repeater because of this, I've changed from an HTM to the Harmony 880, and will probably change again because the 880 is so bad. Had I used an RF up their, I would have spent more total money swapping our RF base stations and such.

If you don't have any TOADs (or if you do, you don't mind powering them up as part of "system startup" and down as part of "system shutdown") and don't need the input state management of the Harmony, I would go with poormanq45's suggestion either with the base, or with an IR repeater.

Dave

What's the "input state management of the harmony" that everyone keeps talking about?

I am new to this.

Anyone?

I think that, simply put, this means the Harmony "knows" when something is on or off and which "inputs" are active etc.

You can press the "watch" movie activity and everything will come on correctly, then press "listen to music" and the DVD player will get turned off, the CD player turned on, the TV turned off, and the surround settings changed from "cinema" to "jazz" (for example). If you then press OFF, the Harmony turns everything that's ON off, and knows not to "toggle" any of the other devices (which would make them come on or turn off by mistake). I am sure there is a better explanation but I noted that you seemed to be getting impatient!

thanks.... I guess this is nothing different that programming other remotes to do the same?

I wasnt getting impatient....just bored

This also means that not only will the Harmony replace your old remotes 100%, but if you do not put them away and use them by mistake, you might actually confuse the system (also true if you turn something on or off manually using the buttons)!

In that case, you would press the "help" button and a "wizard" starts up to find out what is wrong asking questions such as "is the TV on?" or "is the input set to Video 1?" (usually quite painless, but putting away the old remotes would be a better plan long term!).

These errors can also occur if you move the remote before it has finished transmitting its sequence of commands (or if the dog/wife/other live being from Earth or otherwise walks between the remote and the device blocking the signal).

OK, a bit confused...does it know what the state of the device is and then skip that command?
ex..if the unit is already on, dont switch it on again? and vice versa?

Also, how does one avoid the errors due to loss of transmission ?

Getting RF? Hard wire IR extenders?

Other remotes are usually not as good at this. For example, if they use a toggle on/off they send the same signal to turn on your TV as turn it off, or change the input from TV to video. This means that units that are already on can get turned off by mistake, or turned off when you want them on, or changed to sat when you want them left on DVD etc. etc. etc. Other members can explain this in more detail but that is how I understand it from my own experience.

Since it seems to be such a big deal, I can only guess that Logitech have mastered this better than most.

Oh ok got it. So that's probably their "input state management of the harmony" deal.

Its smart enough to know not to send a signal that's unnecessary or worse yet...reverse it.

Hmmm.

Yes, that is correct. If you switch from watching a DVD to watching Sat TV or Cable TV, you just press one "activity" button: it switches off everything that is no longer needed, switches on what is needed and was not yet on, but does not turn the TV off by mistake.

As for correcting errors, if there are any, the "help" button "wizard" fixes them.

There are RF extenders for those models that are RF based. I do not think Logitech sell any IR extenders but they would be universal, so any brand would do.

I'd like to add that you can adjust each device to not turn off when switching inputs if you wish.

If you are playing a video game and pause it to see what's on TV when you switch to the Watch TV activity you will turn off your video game console and loose your spot. You would want to set the game console to NOT turn off when not in use. This way the console will not turn on until you go to the Play Console activity, but once it is turned on it won't turn off until you hit the all shutdown button or manually turn it off.

This setting is available during the setup process. I do this and just put the toggle power command on the lcd screen of the Play Xbox360 activity for those times when I know I won't be going back to the console.

The same goes for DVD or other activity where you might pause and do something else and plan on going back to resume. The remote still keeps track of the device states, but know to skip the power on/off when needed.

bryansj has excellent advice here. I have pretty much set everything to stay on once it's on and not turn off until the "All Off" command is given. It makes changing inputs faster and allows to check scores, etc without losing your place.

I would certainly recommend also that if you have a TiVo / DVR to set it to NEVER turn off or else you will probbaly miss your recordings.

BTW, I went with the 890 over the 880 for the RF reasons. All of my equipment is in my attic and the only thing the remote controls is the TV. What's nice is the blaster is so strong that I didn't need to use any RF extenders for the equipment as the blast just fills the attic. I have it sitting on the floor of the attic in front of my rack.