Harmony Device control?

#1

1) Give a description of the problem
In short, I found Harmony to be a pain when it comes to voice control. You can only activate things that are under activities, and only 1 activity can run at a time. So like I have my TV as 1 activity, and an IR fan for another. By turning on the TV I turn off the fan. By turning on the fan, I turn off the TV. And if I want to speed up or slow down the fan, then that’s another activity (which sometimes turns off the fan).

It’s obvious they aren’t going to give us control over the given functions on some devices through voice, and they won’t fix this activity thing. I found out Home Automation might work, but before I go and spend $60 on a Pi to run it. I was wondering if there was an easy way to control the device itself without needing an activity under harmony

2) What is the expected behavior?
Basically, a way to control devices with Harmony without needing an activity with your voice. Again this makes it were you can have multiple devices run without setting up an exact activity for it. You can simply say
Hey Google, turn on my TV.
Oh man, it’s kinda hot.
Hey Google, turn on my fan. Turn my fan up.

WOW they both are working at the same time, and I didn’t have to use an activity (or at least on the devices I didn’t want to have an activity with).

(My fan like many other cheap ones. To turn down the fan it goes up by 5 speed modes. So if you want it just slower than what you have. You have to press speed 4 times.)

3) What is happening/not happening?
Right now you can only use 1 activity at a time. Also, you have to make another activity to voice control some functions like to tell the fan to speed up or slow down. And telling it to speed up multiple times or slow down the fan actually can turn off the fan. The start of each activity is meant to turn on the device. If the device is on already, then it ignores it. If however you say do xyz activity 2 times quickly by voice, then it will assume the first time wasn’t successful.

#2

There is a way in Harmony’s device settings to keep a device on unless you explicitly send an off command to that device or an activity containing that device.

https://support.myharmony.com/en-us/changing-when-a-device-powers-on-or-off

#3

You’re right that the whole Harmony software is a mess, counterintuitive, nonsensical, and quite frankly from a company as big as Logitech, just embarrassing. And the “power options” settings doesn’t work satisfactorily, at least for me. You turn the tv on with one activity, turn on Plex with another activity, then throw in a fan, a robot vacuum cleaner, an A/C unit, it’s a mess. I too would like to control these devices independently of each other. So far all I’ve seen is a node-js server running on a Pi, with the Harmony api loaded onto it, over on the ST forums, looks very neat. I’m looking to buy a Pi off someone with it all pre-loaded, if there are any volunteers… :wink:

#4

Well, I’m about to the point of just making a way to do this with a Pi. IDK how I will get the voice control function to the Pi, but it looks like some have already figured out how to make a Pi into a remote.


Out of spite I’m thinking of pushing for this since I’m getting a 3D printer in a month, and I have a tech YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/TechRHelp

#5

I too decided to pull the plug, I just bought a Raspberry Pi 3+b off Amazon 5 minutes ago.
Pretty much on the strength of the KuKu Harmony thread on the ST forum and this article…

I’m going to have a fun weekend trying to get that working on a completely new platform, (and the Google Home cast-web server thing) luckily I still have a lot of hair to pull out yet.

#6

I sent an email to Harmony to give them 1 last chance to give me a heads up on if they will even add this. I doubt they will say a hard yes or no.

My overall goal is if I make my own device using my or other people’s code. It will have to do the following.

    • You should be able to control any device with your voice giving the user set it up right.
    • You can actually use more than 1 device. Like right now I have a hub in my bedroom. It would be nice to have one in the kitchen and other parts of the house.
    • It obviously has to work with voice devices like Google Home.
    • It should be easy to program. Like the one thing I do like about the Harmony is you can tell it an IR command by using your remote.

Unlike Harmony, I don’t mind doing this since this can easily be resume material.

#7

I just looked at the post you sent. There is something else that could be added. It’s possible to add RF controls.
I just came across this, and it shows it is possible on the pi side.

#8

I’ve got the Harmony Api running on a Pi and it’s freakin’ amazing. Now I can use voice or webCoRE to start my Robot Hoover and NOTHING happens to my other devices, tv stays on, and using the KuKu Harmony smart app it gives you all the other controls too, change channel, volume etc Why Harmony aren’t able to do this, it’s clearly beyond me, EVERYBODY complains about. I’ve come to the conclusion either they’re doing it on purpose, in spite, or they didn’t put enough memory in the Harmony hubs.