Harmony 655

andyxxx

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Having just taken delivery I found the initial setup of the remote via their website very user friendly, but encountered a problem (in that my new set was not recognized - or rather was recognized but had the wrong 'settings'

I phoned their help line - which was answered immediately!!

The support chap was very helpful, friendly and knowledgable. He set the whole remote up from his end and enabled me to download the info and check it worked correctly while on the phone.

If only all companies were this efficient and helpful.

My initial impressions of the remote itself are also favourable.
 
Well I got mine today and it's driving me crazy!!! It's not controlling half of what it should.

My TV isn't recognised at all, so inputed raw commands and even these only partly work (both the channel change and volume keep going for too long - I've adjusted the repeat settings to no avail)

My surround amp is recognised but not all functions are apparantly available.

The freeview digibox is also recognised but no buttons are working. Again I tried raw learning which apparently worked, but still nothing. Nothing.

DVD recorder partly works - I think with some major tweaking it will be ok.

Video recorder, again some buttons work but some don't, even though the machine has been recognised.


Now I wasn't expecting to be able to get my set-up going in a day, and I am far from being gadget-illiterate, but this is a massive dissappointment. Even if the web wizard didn't work, I wouldn't mind inputting everything manually...if it worked.

I'll phone support tomorrow, but I suspect I might be on the phone all day trying to get this mess sorted out - if at all.

I'm off to kick the cat.
 
Hi Kherm,

I am interested in purchasing a Harmony remote for all my AV equipment - please can you PM me and advise me of where you bought yours from and for how much, as this level of customer support is so positive to hear.

Many thanks

Dave :smashin:
 
Kherm

If the customer support agent you get is anything like as good as the one I got you will be up and running within half an hour.

Having messed with my system last night I can honestly say this is the first bit of kit I have enthused so totally about in a long time and at a fraction of the price of some of the other remotes I was looking at.
 
I think I'm more in kherm's camp than andyxxx's at the moment.

I've set up all my devices - teaching it a couple en route - and several of them seem to work but one (cursa) isn't right and the E800 keeps doing 'extra' things - eg changing digitial processing mode as well as input.

The pain for me so far is that I have to keep changing the volume on my cursa between sources - it's at about 10 o'clock for audio but 12 o'clock for AV and it's a real pain to work out how to set the startup commands to cope with this, without finding that I've suddenly cranked the volume right up by switching from TV to DVD. Having to put multiple 'volume up' commands at the start of an activity and multiple 'volume down' commands at the end of an activity etc feels like a pain.

Also, the number of buttons I'm having to press to do something simple like navigate a DVD menu then change the volume on my AV amp is a real pain. It often feels a lot simpler to pick up the DVD and AV remotes and use these.

WAF is definitely starting to fade after initial promises of 'put on the TV with a single button click' !

Am I doing something wrong with mine? Do I just need to 'play' with it some more or am I just too fussy?
 
Here's my update:

Called customer services on their freephone number and got through straight away.
I explained my 2 main problems (TV not responding well and freeview box not responding at all).
The pleasant chap tried 9 separate downloads to my harmony (one by one...I was on the phone for 1h 20m in total) to try and find a code that would work my TV. Eventually we got it working ( albeit with some extraneous buttons, but that I have sorted easily).

The bigger problem was the Nokia Mediamaster which he just couldn't get to work at all. After talking with a superviser, he sent me an email with a beta version of a new firmware update. Apparently some devices (including my Nokia) require a higher bit rate to operate than the harmony could provide.
The downloading of the firmware was simple and now the Nokia works fine.

It's just as well that I was able to speak to the helpline while connected to the net, or I don't think I would be sorted still.

So, now all my devices are recognised. Some features will have to be learned raw, but that's easy enough.

What I am still not sure about though is the "Watch TV" , etc. buttons.
In our house, maybe the tuner amp will be on and switched through to the kitchen speakers while someone else is watching TV in the lounge (as an example). The harmony creates havoc with this kind of set up. I suppose it's not the harmony's fault - but I'm wondering if I can work around it. At the moment, I'm not using this feature and am just using the device button to control individual items as required which works OK but is not as simple as hard device buttons like the ones on my old OFA 5.

It's great to be able to rename and delete and move buttons around using the web wizard and the transmitter is strong too. Unlike my old OFA (which could never control the up/down button for the Nokia, nor the TV's text buttons), it has learned every command I have tried on it. Even the complex sub menus of my Tosh HDD/DVD recorder can be easily accessed. It sits well in my hand and I am very quickly beginning to warm to it's features.

The Activity buttons are, at the moment, my only gripe. The ones I have set up are unreliable (this may very well be my fault though).

So, after an agonising and infuriating first day out of the box, things are much better now.
 
I guess there is no way to switch off the control, the lcd always stays on.
 
I too found the 655 a hugely frustrating experience initially - i am also far from technically illiterate and it probably took me a whole day before it got near to what I wanted it to do!

However, the support has been very good - couldnt get through on the phone, but all emails were answered within the 24hours with very comprehensive suggestions.

And now it is working very well - it does everything i could ever need - but setting up is a not inconsiderable task!
 
Really? I have never used a pronto - but the thing that made the harmony more difficult than it needed to be for me was the fact that it was trying to do things for me and keep me away from the nuts and bolts.
Got there eventually tho
 
Got my demo version last week and love it, an hour to set up and away we go.

Wife loves the single remote and 'what do you want to do' buttons, if I wanted it to do any more I would go to my Ipaq and set that up. Personally I don't see the need for the pronto types.

But I don't have a multi room set up, which I can see being a problem for some
 
another massive :thumbsup: for Harmony/Logitech Customer Service.

Wifey's 688 was acting up, so I emailed Harmony CS this afternoon asking them to dupe the config/settings from my account (for my 655) to her account since my config worked exactly as needed. Within the hour they replied back explaining they were not permitted to copy things from customer account to customer account, but instead created a clone of my account and explained how to change the clone account's hardware to point to the 688 and it would sort out the download/transfer on its own (which it did and she's now chuffed)

Not bad service for 2pm on a Sunday ... :D
 
I'm having loads of problems with my devices being set to the wrong inputs. Initially when I press the 3 different activity buttons each device sets to the correct input (tv ext2, vcr ext3 and dvd ext1) but then say ive gone from tv (ext2) to dvd (ext1) and then I try to go back to tv the input is set to ext 3 rather than the corrext ext 2. And the same happens if I try and switch to another device. It's like after the initial cycling through the activities the remote loses track of the inputs.

Now the help button does fix the problem by asking me if the correct inputs are set etc but the remote doesnt remember its own fixes. I dont want to have to press help everytime I want to set a device, it kind of defeats the purpose of havinga one touch activity button.

Any ideas?
 
I've had the exact same problems as you barbaris.

In fact I've given up on using the "activities" in the way they should. I now just use them as push-throughs for volume and channel changing.

It's not ideal, but I'm getting used to it.
 
I had a similar problem. How does your TV select its AV inputs?

Mine (Panasonic TX28PK3) toggles between AV and TV with one button, then requires colour buttons to select the AV input. However once in an AV channel - you need to press the colour button twice to change the AV input.

So it all depends on what state your TV is in.

I got round this by making my TV go back into TV mode between AV input changes (using the OnClose function on each activity) before selecting the appropriate AV input. This is slightly messy - but does always work.

I relayed this to Customer Support who wrote a modification for me - but I havent tried it yet so cant comment on how successful they were - but top marks for a quick response from them!
 
psflynn said:
I had a similar problem. How does your TV select its AV inputs?

Mine (Panasonic TX28PK3) toggles between AV and TV with one button, then requires colour buttons to select the AV input. However once in an AV channel - you need to press the colour button twice to change the AV input.

So it all depends on what state your TV is in.

I got round this by making my TV go back into TV mode between AV input changes (using the OnClose function on each activity) before selecting the appropriate AV input. This is slightly messy - but does always work.

I relayed this to Customer Support who wrote a modification for me - but I havent tried it yet so cant comment on how successful they were - but top marks for a quick response from them!


where do i find the onclose function for each activity?
 
oh yeah and your other question my tv use one button to cycle through the 3 different inputs (scarts) and the tv input itself.
 
"Onclose" is in the activity behaviour page where it details what happens when an activity starts (and ends!) - you can add as many commands at the end of an activity as the start.

Have you looked in the input selection part of your TV section on the remote? From what I remember there are three options for cycling between AV inputs - and I think your description matches one of them.
 

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