[bluray]

I'm not sure which HP IR you are using. I'm using this HP for AsRock MCE: HP OEM Windows 7 It has better ranges than most remotes that I'm currently uses and returned. It's very responsive, and there is no lag either!

[fional]

Fional, I am going to guess your issue is with the HP Receiver you are using and not the Harmony One. I remember others having issues with lag with certain HP receivers.

BTW, I have multiple harmony remotes including a One and have no lag with any of them.

Edit: Read more here: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...ght=remote

Edit again: Heres a snip from another posters post:

"My experience with the OVU400102/71 was terrible. I spent many hours fiddling with the MCE Keyboard and MCE Remote methods of programming my Harmony, several frustrating hours using Logitech's clunky and slow software (okay, maybe not slow, but 5 minute remote updates can seem like an eternity especially if you do it 10-15 times per session). The behavior was erratic. Everything would work, I guess, but buttons were sometimes ignored or they repeated 3-4 times per press.

Fed up, I bought my second "OVU400103/00" from eBay and it came as the OVU422000/06. Without changing anything else, I swapped the receivers and it's perfect! No skipping, no repeats. Plus it's a smaller unit, which is nice.

FTR, I'm using a Harmony 890. "

I just ordered a OVU400103/00 off eBay, sure what's another 10 Euro. We'll see how it goes.

[dtviewer]

I just ordered a OVU400103/00 off eBay, sure what's another 10 Euro. We'll see how it goes.

Good luck and make sure to post back your impressions.

(And re-sell your other HP receiver on ebay!)

[fional]

Good luck and make sure to post back your impressions.

(And re-sell your other HP receiver on ebay!)

Tips
One way I eliminated "some" of the lag was that I used "MCE Remote" for the navigation aspect and "MCE Keyboard" for the rest. So I'm having the Harmony One use two remotes, as one, so to speak. So for up down left right and enter, I'm having it as MCE Remote commands. For things like "Q" and "C" for queue and context menu respectively, I have it use MCE Keyboard commands.

Doing that eliminated it doing that annoying thing where sometimes you'd hit down or up and it would implement the command twice.

Next, I replaced my HP receiver. I just installed it. It does seem a bit faster, or perhaps that's just the impression I want. I'm not sure. It's definitely not as responsive as my Rii Keyboard, not even close. Sometimes I see the red light go on, but the command is ignored (like just now), but it isn't as frequent with the other receiver.

Rant

The other thing is, quite often I'm having to hit "help" on the remote, because the remote has a list of commands but doesn't implement half of them. I've been on to logitech support and they've adjusted the lag times, but still most the time it just doesn't work. It's got to the point where my custom actions will include the command multiple times, just to ensure it happens.

One example of this is to use XBMC, the TV needs to be set to HDMI, unscaled, and the A/V receiver set to HDMI1 and audio as straight. No bother, the set-up for that is very simple. However, even with the one click, most the time the A/V receiver doesn't bother switching to HDMI1, even tho it will do the straight command. This is frequent with all custom actions, where certain ones don't happen until you hit "help", which is annoying. Now it seems like a timing issue, but even putting 10 second lag-time between the commands does not guarantee all the commands will be implemented.

Even with that criticism, it's nice in that you can set-up these multi actions. It was annoying setting the TV to unscaled for HDMI1, but then for the PS3 having to set it back to Auto-Fill. The reason is, on my TV, that's essentially navigating 2 windows and 5 clicks. Bloody annoying! So in that sense, it does win.


Conclusion
It's not a perfect remote though, at least not for me, and I definitely don't think it's worth 90 pounds.

[ceejay]

I've just more-or-less completed the setup of a Harmony 700 - controlling a Ubuntu 11.04 system via an HP IR receiver. It sort-of worked straight out of the box with lirc, although I have spent literally days tweaking the Harmony setup to get it the way I want (though my set up is non-trivial...).

I chose the 700 over the One as (in addition to being cheaper!) it has the four colour buttons and I reckoned that 6 devices would be (just) enough.

One tip I would pass on with this remote: if you open the box and follow the instructions to go to Myharmony.com and then set up the remote, you'll be taken to a config tool which is relatively easy to use but limited in capability. You can't, for example, set up custom button sequences or customise exactly what happens when you start and stop activities.

However you can download the "Harmony Remote Software" from the support site, which is much more clunky but more capable. Worth using if the basic tool doesn't cut it for you.

[Kaitlyn2004]

For those of you with a HP receiver, what are the jacks labeled "1" and "2" on the back for?

[Briam]

You can buy ir transmitters and connect em so you can get your htpc to control another device by ir.

[ntlord]

The whole remote thing for HTPC really frustrates me. Why can't there be a remote that has a keyboard and IR such that it can control all of my devices and also function as a keyboard to my HTPC? Even better, a native keyboard (e.g. something that would work in the bios). I have looked and looked, and the only thing that looks like it could come close is some of the URC stuff. However, they are huge dicks, and won't let you get a hold of their programming software. I refuse to do business with a company that operates like that. Additionally, as a matter of personal pride I refuse to pay someone to program a remote for me.

What upsets me most is money isn't the issue, I'll gladly pay whatever it takes if I could get a remote that would actually do everything I needed it to do.

I know the pulse-eight can sort of do this, but it is frankly ugly and also doesn't appear to have the advanced macro stuff, that a Harmony might have. I also would like to have the ability to have macros for my favorite channels, like the Harmony has, but not with a 24 channel device limit. Given, how prevalent and mainstream HTPCs are now becoming, it seems as though there is a huge hole in the marketplace, for a device like a harmony, that doesn't suck.

I've seen some of the ipad and iphone stuff too. But, those interfaces remind me of the old school URC stuff, and look horrible.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but it just frustrates me. If anyone knows of anything that would fit the bill, I'd love to hear about it.

[Beer40oz]

Simple.... user friendly.

[eskro]

harmony 650

[Briam]

@fional
Did you ever resolve this in any way? I'm having the exact same problem.

[robstarke]

I have the Xbox 360 Universal remote (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/...amz-lg.jpg)

Which is the best receiver that I can buy to make this work? I specifically like the fact that the Xbox button will light up.