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User

29.06.2015 13:22:59

Why no a real integration of Harmony Smart control

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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.

Why there isn't a real integration of Hamony Smart control with remote buddy ?
Why do you use a playstation 3 remote to simulate the harmony smart control ?

the current integration isn't stable :
- i have to press a key to connect the harmony during few secondes after activity initialisation
- i loose connection sometime and i need to re-pair the harmony

Thanks a lot for your explanation.

These entries from the FAQ may be relevant to this topic:

Hardware - Harmony® Smart Control

How do I set up the Harmony Smart Control and connect it to Remote Buddy on my Mac? (FAQ015E0264)
Please see the detailed HowTo on this topic in our blog.
Nothing happens when I press a button on the Smart Control. (FAQ015E0261)
This can be due to a number of many, very different reasons:
1. Wrong/No Activity: the Smart Control will only send your button presses to Remote Buddy if you've selected the "Remote Buddy" activity. Activities on the Harmony Smart Remote are chosen by pressing one of the buttons from the "Music, TV, Movie" row at the top of the remote. Please note: short and long presses of these buttons can select different activities.
2. Bluetooth turned off: please make sure that Bluetooth on your Mac is turned on.
3. Harmony Hub not paired: the Harmony Hub sometimes looses the Bluetooth pairing when making changes to its configuration. To initially establish - or re-establish - a Bluetooth pairing between the Harmony Hub and your Mac, follow this guide:
  
  Pairing instructionsShow
4. Soft keyboard pairing: make sure you only have paired your Harmony Hub to your Mac as a "Sony Playstation 3". If you also pair your Harmony Hub as a soft keyboard, Remote Buddy will no longer be able to capture input events coming from it. Why is this? In "Sony Playstation 3" mode, the Harmony Hub identifies as "Consumer Control" device to your Mac. For this class of devices, any app is allowed to exclusively capture all input. For keyboards, however, OS X only allows access to apps running with root/administrator priviledges, locking out Remote Buddy. To properly remove the pairing as a keyboard, first use the Harmony in that mode, then remove "Harmony Keyboard" from System Preferences > Bluetooth - and finally remove the respective device from your Harmony's configuration. Since OS X caches the identity of Bluetooth devices, it may take some time, several attempts and maybe even a system restart before OS X sees your Harmony Hub as a "Consumer Control" device again and again allows Remote Buddy access to it.
5. Empty batteries: if you can't control any devices with your Harmony Smart Remote at all, while using the "Harmony Control" app on your iOS device still works, chances are the battery of your remote needs to be replaced. Logitech provides instructions for this.

Which Harmony commands need to be assigned to the respective buttons on the Smart Control so that I can use all buttons with Remote Buddy? (FAQ015E0265)

If I haven't used the Harmony Smart Remote for a few minutes, Remote Buddy does not react to the first button press. (FAQ015E0263)
Please verify that no power saving options are enabled at "Remote Buddy > Preferences > Hardware > Bluetooth Receiver".
When the Harmony Hub connects to my Mac, I'm asked for a PIN. (FAQ015E0262)
Please enter 0000.

User

29.07.2015 09:48:02

Re: Why no a real integration of Harmony Smart control

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This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.

Why there isn't a real integration of Hamony Smart control with remote buddy ?

Remote Buddy does offer a real integration with the Harmony Smart Control.

Why do you use a playstation 3 remote to simulate the harmony smart control ?

Because it is a Bluetooth device supported by the Harmony Hub that
1) is not a keyboard (OS X requires apps that want exclusive access to a keyboard to run as root, whereas OS X is fine to provide exclusive access to a remote control device like a PS3 remote to any app running in the context of the user)
2) provides enough Commands to assign one to every button
3) already assigns Commands to most of the remote's buttons

The other possible devices (keyboard or Wii Remote) either would require Remote Buddy to run as root to get incoming events - or not offer enough commands to cover all buttons of the remote.

the current integration isn't stable :
- i have to press a key to connect the harmony during few secondes after activity initialisation

Please check that you have not checked any of the power saving options at Remote Buddy > Preferences > Hardware > Bluetooth Receiver > Energy saving.

In the test I just ran the Harmony does not disconnect by itself nor does Remote Buddy disconnect it even after 20 minutes of not using the remote at all.

- i loose connection sometime and i need to re-pair the harmony

The Bluetooth connection is completely managed by the OS X Bluetooth stack and the Harmony hardware. Remote Buddy's job is limited to watching for OS X to announce that the Harmony Hub has (!) connected - and then grab and interpret the events OS X makes available. It has no part in checking or managing pairings, accepting or declining connections.

Any loss of connection and requirement for re-pairing is therefore an issue between the OS X Bluetooth stack and the Harmony software.

That said, I have not personally experienced this issue with either OS X 10.10 or 10.11, but know that older OS X versions have shipped with - in part - very buggy OS X Bluetooth stacks. Which OS X version are you using?

Cheers,
Felix

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