Logitech Officially Discontinues Harmony Remotes

Harmony Elite in the living room is ideal for me as all my AV equipment is in another room, so it can control all that easily. The old Ultimate that it replaced is in the bedroom and is nice to have just for a backlit remote at night as well as an easy to find sleep timer, also turns off my hue lights when the TV is on etc too.
 
Gutted. I have an Elite in my home cinema and a Companion in my living room. Both are absolutely fantastic and make everything so utterly simple to use. I would be very annoyed if I had to go back to using separate remotes for my TV, Virgin box, and amp, let alone the... *counts*... 9 items in my cinema room. I'm sure most people are happy with a TV with built in streaming functionality and maybe a soundbar, but not me. HDMI ARC and CEC are garbage for a start.

I hope mine continue to work for many years until a decent alternative emerges.
 
That sucks. I use a harmony for my living room setup...

As others have said maybe time to do that upgrade to an elite that I was putting off before they are gone!
 
Terrible news. The thought of spending £250+ on a remote may sound mental to some, but if mine broke, I'd buy one again in a heartbeat. The elite I have is easily one of the best purchases I've made in the last decade.
 
Howard said:
. HDMI ARC and CEC are garbage for a start.
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How so?

It simplifies everything. No need for multiple remotes and if your avr or soundbar can't take a new standard but TV can there is no longer a need to upgrade the avr saving you thousands of pounds. For example if my avr cannot take 4k 120hz in your world I'd need to buy not only a new TV for when I want to do 4K 120hz but a new avr as well. Whereas in the current world all I need is a new TV if my current isn't compatible.

If that's complete garbage then I take it all the TV manufacturers and device manufacturers have gotten it completely wrong and you have a better solution?
 
Psycho Sonny said:
How so?

It simplifies everything.
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It does, in theory.

They are in my experience (and that of plenty of others) very unreliable.

My dad had exactly the same situation as you; he bought a new TV but his older receiver didn't support 4K passthrough. That's fine, I thought. use HDMI ARC. It worked fine. Once. After that, when you turn the amp back on it would be a lottery as to whether it would actually output any sound. This is not helpful to him, or my elderly mother who just wants to turn on the TV and watch the news.

I ended up taking an optical output from the TV to the AVR. This works perfectly, and luckily he already has a (Logitech Harmony) universal remote with which he controls his devices. I just had to tweak its activity configs to fiddle with the input selections.

Other family and friends who have tried to use ARC with various all-in-one surround systems and soundbars have also struggled. My girlfriend's dad bought an LG surround sound/Bluray system to match his LG TV and even then it had similar issues to the above, and when it did work the volume adjustments through CEC were erratic. It seems he's now just given up with it and gone back to the TV's built-in speakers.

So you'll have to forgive me for being rather "old school" in my approach of wanting everything connected and controlled using more robust methods :p
 
I've never had any issues with arc or hdmi CEC / control.

I turn my TV on using either the TV remote or sky remote and it turns the avr on. I can then press the volume on either remote and the volume on the avr goes up or down.

If you are having issues it's usually because of stupidly long hdmi cables or using crap hdmi cables. I tend to spend a couple of quid more and buy kabeldirekt and other quality makes rather than generic cheap stuff out of Poundland.

Funnily enough the Yamaha soundbar upstairs also has zero issues doing the same.

Maybe Denon are using cheap hdmi chips? Or it's the cables. Never had issues with either Yamaha. TV downstairs is an LG and upstairs is a Sony. Albeit no issues with the Panasonic before it.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
I've never had any issues with arc or hdmi CEC / control.

I turn my TV on using either the TV remote or sky remote and it turns the avr on. I can then press the volume on either remote and the volume on the avr goes up or down.

If you are having issues it's usually because of stupidly long hdmi cables or using crap hdmi cables. I tend to spend a couple of quid more and buy kabeldirekt and other quality makes rather than generic cheap stuff out of Poundland.

Funnily enough the Yamaha soundbar upstairs also has zero issues doing the same.

Maybe Denon are using cheap hdmi chips? Or it's the cables. Never had issues with either Yamaha. TV downstairs is an LG and upstairs is a Sony. Albeit no issues with the Panasonic before it.
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Can you control 15 devices from one remote, have macros, have bias bsckligu control, different npunc through, menus, using controls from other decides in each activity?

You have a basic system
 
Fluffybob said:
I have read that support will continue as long as they can.
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Call me cynical but I wonder if they're saying this so existing stock sells :(

This is bad news for me. The RF ability to control devices in different rooms is so useful for me. I have 2 TV's connected to my AVR, front room and bedroom, plus all the other kit, SkyQ, Xbox etc., is in a third room. This means using the macro features are indispensable, plus I have Alexa control from all around the house. This news is very sad.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
I've never had any issues with arc or hdmi CEC / control.

I turn my TV on using either the TV remote or sky remote and it turns the avr on. I can then press the volume on either remote and the volume on the avr goes up or down.

If you are having issues it's usually because of stupidly long hdmi cables or using crap hdmi cables. I tend to spend a couple of quid more and buy kabeldirekt and other quality makes rather than generic cheap stuff out of Poundland.

Funnily enough the Yamaha soundbar upstairs also has zero issues doing the same.

Maybe Denon are using cheap hdmi chips? Or it's the cables. Never had issues with either Yamaha. TV downstairs is an LG and upstairs is a Sony. Albeit no issues with the Panasonic before it.
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Sorry, you've either been very lucky or are telling porkies. CEC is a god awful industry non-standard with each manufacturer ignoring core specification to stick in their own interpretations to try and keep you within their ecosystem. Constant problems with multiple sources attempting to steal focus, no granularity of powered state of devices, intermittent handshake orders and these are just the well acknowledged issues.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
My avr can be controlled by the TV now.

If I turn anything on avr automatically turns on. TV remote can adjust volume.

No need for this product anymore.

Even my phone can do all in one. I can control the avr, TV, etc all from it using the individual apps. So I no longer need all the individual remotes sitting on the table either.

Same with soundbar upstairs the TV can control it so no need for anything other than the sky remote.
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On this very rare occasion i agree with PS :)

I used to have the Harmony set up, but once i got my AVR and smart TV, the connection/volume/channel change etc is all automatic. It must be simple enough as the Mrs and kids can work the whole home entertainment set up.
 
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