Aargh! I actually feel like smashing the Harmony 880. I can't understand what I am doing wrong. I set up a Watch Tivo command. It's supposed to turn on my receiver, TV and Tivo. No matter what I do, I cannot get the activity to turn the TV on.

TV is JVC HD-52Z585.
Power On Delay: 5000 ms
Inter-key Delay: 400 ms
Input Delay: 1000 ms
Inter-Device Delay: 3500 ms

The default Power On Delay for the HD-52Z585 was 24000! The Help Key does absolutely nothing. I have to go into the Device and Power the device on. This is a horrific first impression since I had no problems with my Kameleon 6 in 1 or Sony RM-VL710, both of which were less than 25% of the cost of the 880.

As soon as Tech support opens tomorrow...

Update. I decided that I would give it one more try. I deleted the TV and added it again. I'm not sure what happened to the original TV when it went to the Tivo command, but the "new" TV now powers up. I even lowered the delays to something more reasonable.

My only gripe now is that the "Activities" are much slower than Macros from the various other remotes that I've used.

If that's the case, then its probably just your delays - especially your power-on and input delays. Take a stopwatch to the input change and power-on of your TV (your cell phone probably has one) and then add half a second for good measure and you're usually in good shape - you can tweak in 500 ms increments from there.

Do note that the Harmony will send every discrete command to every device in an activitity when you change activities as opposed to the bare minimum of commands.

Most devices are happy with an inter-device delay of around 100-200 ms, which may speed things up a little more. (Or a lot more given your 3500 ms entry right now.)

I read through the FAQ on the Logitech site. Can you explain in layman's terms what it means? I'm trying to speed up the rate at which commands are sent. The one I'm trying to really tweak is a simple Tivo operation. I simply want my TV to turn on and the Tivo to turn on. It takes my Sony RM-VL710 about one second to do this. The 880 takes MUCH longer.

My current TV settings.
Power On Delay: 2100 ms
Inter-key Delay: 300 ms
Input Delay: 1000 ms
Inter-Device Delay: 1000 ms

Power On Delay: When a device powers on, it takes a certain amount of time to "warm up" and resume normal operation.

Inter-Device Delay: When an infrared command is sent for a particular device, every device in your system receives the command, but only one will respond to it. The other devices ignore the command. Sometimes, a device will ignore the command and then stop accepting any of its own infrared commands for a period of time. This period of time is known as the Inter-Device delay. During this delay period no infrared signals are generated by the Harmony Remote. In rare cases this delay can be several seconds, but in most cases needs to be set to only 500 ms.

Does this simply mean that when I press the Play Tivo command, it sends a Power On command to my TV and then 2100 ms later it sends the Tivo command? What delays are being added up to come up with a total delay?

The power on delay means that after it sends the TV on command, it will wait 2.1 seconds before sending other commands to the TV (such as input select). The inter-device delay is used when sending multiple commands to the same device (after power on).

Since your Sony seems to work very quickly try changing the power on delay to 300 ms, then increase it as necessary until the TV always works (powers on and selects the right input). You can also decrease the inter-device and inter-key delays as well.

The harmony will try to reduce the overall time required by ordering the commands for devices with the longest delays first.

The delays are designed to make sure that every device recieves every command that the Haromony sends.

Note, times are measured in milliseconds (as mentioned), so 1000 ms = 1 sec = 1 s.

Inter-key Delay:
The delay between any two successive commands. If you tweak the repeats (discussed later), many devices will work perfectly with a 0ms Inter-Key delay. 100 ms (0.1 s) is the best starting point for the vast majority of devices, though a very few need something longer.

Power Delay:
Most devices have a period after they recieve a power on command where they're busy starting up and won't accept any other IR commands. This tells the remote how long this period lasts so that it can wait until its over before it sends any more commands to that device.

Input Delay:
When you change inputs on many devices, the device also becomes very busy acuqiring and syncing with the new signal. As a result there is also a period (generally shorter than the Power-on delay as a Power-on necessarily includes a signal-acquisition period) when the device won't accept any IR commands. The Input Delay is the length of this period so that the Harmony can wait until the device is done changing inputs before it sends any additional commands.

Inter-Device delay:
OK, so an IR signal goes out. There are 4 or 5 or more electric eyes in front of you ready to recieve it. It reaches all of them, and each device tries to decode the signal. The problem is that if the device isn't familiar with the signal coming in, it has a very hard time knowing when that signal is over and the next one (wich may be for it) has started. As a result, most devices look for a period of "dead air" after each signal to make sure that its over. The Inter-device delay tells the Harmony how much dead air each device needs before being ready to accept a command. In multiple remote land, this is more than covered by the time it takes you to pick up the next remote, but its an important thing for the Harmony to know. For most devices 100 or 200 ms is adequate.

Repeats:
The vast majority of IR standards repeat the signal a few times to assure correct transmission. Most standards call for the signal to be transmitted 3 times (original + 2 repeats). For most devices, the Harmony defaults to transmit each command 4 times (original + 3 repeats). To change this, go under troubleshooting for the device and select "Not all commands recieved correctly" and then either too many or not all commands.

How to set and tweak the input and power-on delays:

The most reliable way to do this is to use a stopwatch. I usually remind people that there is a stopwatch in most cell phones so you don't try to go digging one out of a drawer somewhere. Press the power or next input key on the original remote (for the power - ovbiously we're talking about from the power-off state) and then wait until the device is up and running again. You can also try sending additional commands until it starts recieving. Stop the stopwatch. Add 1/2-1 second to your time and then you have it. Just enter it in milliseconds. (7.5 seconds = 7500 milliseconds). You can also try the one-one-thousand-two-one-thousand technique - but obviously its not as accurate.

Adjusting the inter-key delay: Start at 100 ms. If the remote works and is fast enough for you, you're done. If it doesn't work reliably, try increasing the inter-key delay up to 200 ms and then 1000. If the key isn't recieved reliably at 1000 ms (1 second per key), go under troubleshooting and play around with the number of repeats. (There could be some stranger problems too.)

If the remote is sluggish at this inter-key delay, drop it to 0 ms and tweak the repeats until it feels right. Like I said, 2 repeats is usually optimal for most devices.

Much thanks for the explanations and suggestions. I'll give them a try.

I'm very happy this site is around. It's been more of a help to me than Logitech's customer service.

Good news! Everything is MUCH faster now. It's still about a second slower than the Sony RM-VL710, but I'm guessing it's because of the Smart State operation. I'll probably tweak it a little more to see if I can get it running a little faster, but my frustration has turned to contentment for now. I'm even getting used to the buttons and can operate them by feel 80% of the time.

I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to finally control all my components. My RM-VL710 controlled most, but I have too many video game systems. :)

So, Shorthand, if I may jump onto this thread, my cable-box responds too much, mostly when changing channels, sometimes 5 or 6 channels with a quick press of the button. The setting is zero, harmony base, with the inter-key delay at 100ms. If I increase this somewhat will it solve the problem?
David

You problem sounds like the "Number of Repeats" is too high.

shorthand,
very nice explanation. thanks for taking the time!

After a whole week of playing around with my Harmony 659 and plenty of advice from others here (God bless them!). Now finally, the remote does everything I need it to do, exactly the way I want it to do it. There were a few commands I thought 'no way it can do that', and sure enough - there was a way! Persevere, it'll happen. Great product.

So what was your final config in terms of delays and repeats for the devices you had a problem with??

The Sw for my Harmony 700 gives me access to only the "inter-key" and "input" delays. Is there some way to get at the others?
thanks!
/j

Yes, for 600, 650 and 700 models see: [Link: logitech-en-amr.custhelp.com]