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npggefvert · 2010-11-09, 04:47

I have bought my first Harmony in about 10 years (my old one broke a few years ago) and the process for setup is a bit different... But definitely better... I just need help figuring out one setting. I have the Harmony 600 (basically a monochrome display 650), and when I press the activity button for XBMC, everything happens perfectly to power on, switch to the correct inputs, etc.

The problem is that after all of that happens, I have to go to the device menu and choose to control XBMC to get any of the commands to work on it. This is contrary to how it works for the other activies:

When I press 'watch TV' everything switches to the the cable set-top box and all of the controls (except for volume - that is on the received) default to the cable box.

Similarly, if I choose 'Watch a movie' it switches to the Blu-Ray player and all of the remote buttons are controlling the Blu-Ray player.

I want to be able to go to the XBMC activity, and have the control set to send commands to XBMC by default (except for the volume), but cannot find any options in the remote for a 'Device focus'.

poofyhairguy · 2010-11-09, 05:58

I have that exact remote.

What you have to do is edit the buttons on the XBMC Activity. They changed how to do that in recent versions, so you have to poke around some. But in the button edit menu you set each button manually to a device (XBMC, TV, AV Receiver) and it works.

The reason it magically works for your Blu Ray player is because the Harmony assumes to know what buttons you will use for what and programs them automatically. Since the Harmony doesn't know what XBMC is, you have to do a few extra steps for a HTPC...

npggefvert · (This post was last modified: 2010-11-09, 07:25 by npggefvert.)

poofyhairguy Wrote:I have that exact remote.

What you have to do is edit the buttons on the XBMC Activity. They changed how to do that in recent versions, so you have to poke around some. But in the button edit menu you set each button manually to a device (XBMC, TV, AV Receiver) and it works.

The reason it magically works for your Blu Ray player is because the Harmony assumes to know what buttons you will use for what and programs them automatically. Since the Harmony doesn't know what XBMC is, you have to do a few extra steps for a HTPC...

Yep, found the area where it has all the buttons on the remote with the drop downs for device and function for each... Very call and a vast improvement over the Harmony I had 10 years ago. I was actually able to map all the necessary functions to buttons that way though, so I don't have to have anything mapped to pages on the screen. Very excited, as we had 5 remotes floating around before...

htpc guy · 2010-11-13, 04:02

I love the harmony remotes.
Activity>XBMC = happy!

**Prizm4** · 2011-01-07, 01:18

I'm having the same problem with my Harmony 650. I have assigned my XBMC device to the button "Watch a Movie". I press that button and it switches over with no problem. However the remote does not control XBMC, I have to manually switch control over using the LCD controls.

Any suggestions?

maxinc · 2011-01-07, 10:56

Prizm4 Wrote:I'm having the same problem with my Harmony 650. I have assigned my XBMC device to the button "Watch a Movie". I press that button and it switches over with no problem. However the remote does not control XBMC, I have to manually switch control over using the LCD controls.

Any suggestions?

Like poofy said, you'll have to manually edit the button assignment for the XBMC activity so when the switch over is complete, each button will control various equipment. For example you may want to volume buttons on the remote to control the AV receiver's or TV's volume while the directional keys to send IR signals to the HTPC and so on. This is all done from the Harmony's configuration utility.

**ashlar** · 2011-01-07, 13:05

I'm wondering if something could be done to get Logitech to include a "MCE remote XBMC" config. The sheer amount of Harmony related posts in the community is impressive.

**Prizm4** · 2011-01-07, 15:58

ok, thanks for the reply. I thought you just had to assign a Device to an Activity Button (ie, "Watch a Movie"), but now I see the additional options for customizing every single button on the remote.
I thought that was weird since I just customized every button in the Device settings. I didn't realize you have to do it all again when you make the Device an Activity.

maxinc · 2011-01-07, 16:03

Prizm4 Wrote:I didn't realize you have to do it all again when you make the Device an Activity.

An activity usually involves several devices like HTPC, AV Receiver, TV and Light Controller. Although each device is setup correctly individually, this feature allows you to decide which button is in charge of each device so you won't have to change devices on your remote.