I'm planning on getting a Harmony 676 for my setup (which includes an old low def TV).

The thing I was wondering is if it's possible to set the remote up to behave like a normal universal remote would in line with the 'power' button.

The primary reason I want to get the 676 is that I have a video source selector box (with 'descrete' capabilities) and simply want to be able to set it so by choosing the device on the remote it selects the device on the selector automatically.

Being the TV (almost undoubtedly) doesn't have descrete codes for power, I was wondering if it's possible to set the 'off' button to act as a normal power button like a universal remote by default. This way I would never have to worry about the TV (or any other device) being out of 'power' sync (and I would get the feeling of direct control that I so desire).

I do know from reading the forum that I can choose to always 'leave the device on' during the setup process. My wonder is if it's possible for me to hard code (override) the 'off' button to do what I want it to do (via learning or otherwise) for each selected device??? It would also give me the second bonus of being able to use the power button to turn the TV on and off while my DVR is selected (as this is the device selected 90% of the time anyway).

All Harmony remotes are "smart state" so if you use an activity that uses the TV and switch to another activity that uses the TV it will not send the power toggle command. If you then switch to an activity that doesn't use the TV it will turn the TV off (unless of course you "leave this device on all of the time").

You must set up the TV device as "one button powers on and off" for this to occur. I believe that if you select the "one button powers on and another powers off" then the Harmony will send the "power on" command each time (since it's a no-op if the device is already on) you select an activity that uses the TV.

This much I knew... My main concern since I have the one power button setup is that if I hit power on the TV, then I use the remote, it will be out of sync ( and will turn off the TV when I select something on the remote).


My question was, is it possible to configure this to not be the case, or is this a requirement regardless of what the user might want?

To clarify: Is it possible first to program the TV to be always on (so device buttons do not effect the tv), then seperately manually program the off button to send a signal of my choosing (which would be the TV's power button in this case)?

If this is possible then I can easily get the setup I want...

You can't program the OFF button. Why can't you just let the harmony turn the TV on and off as needed? If it does get out of sync, you just hit the help button and it will ask you if the TV is on - you say No, it sends the power toggle to turn it on, you say "yes, that fixed the problem" and everything is back in sync.

If it's just turning on the TV that's a problem, you can always tell it you have a separate on/off button, then give it a bogus ON command but give it the correct power toggle for the off command. Then you can manually turn the tv on each time and OFF will turn it off for you. But I don't know why you'd want to do that.

I wouldn't want to do it that way... As I said I just like having the decision to control the TV off & on normally as apposed to having to hit help when the TV gets out of whack...

There is a circumstance where this situation creates a major inconvience: Say I'm watching a DVD & then pause it. If I turn off the TV temporarily I will end up turning the DVD player off as well. So when I come back, I have to wait for the disc to load up & get to the main screen, go into options & re-enable close captioning (as that's how my wife likes it), then go into chapters and locate an approximate match to where I had origionally paused it. All in all this circumstance is actually a major inconvienence compared to having to hit a power on/off every time I would want to use my DVD player. It turns the normal 1 second push of the power button before & after each use into a 3+ minute activity... If you do the math, the amount of time spent doing this one activity is about equivalent to powering the dvd player on then off 100 times. Or, more simply, if I do the above on 1 out of every 100 dvd's I watch, the remote has then taken more time with it's state feature than a simple on/off button would have. Oh, and for the record, I do actually do this on a semi-regular basis (if I have to pause for a length of time, I prefer to leave the TV off)... And no, I would not want to leave my DVD player 'always on'...

But, I guess that is the price I'll have to pay for wanting a remote with 'more' control... :P

In that case all you have to do it manually turn the TV off, leave, and when you come back manually turn the TV back on (leaving the remote in watch DVD activity). You're right back where you were. Just don't hit the OFF button. What could be simpler?

In addition to Akirby's suggestion, you could also add the TV power toggle command to one of the LCD button in the desired activities.

Almost sounds to me as if you actually want a "Pause DVD" activity which only includes the DVD player.

So you are in the "Watch DVD" activity and you switch to the "Pause DVD" activity .... the TV is not included so it automatically switches off.

Later you switch back to the "Watch DVD" activity and the TV automatically switches the TV back on.

jlet's suggestion is bang on - just program the power toggle into an LCD or hard button of your choice and control the temporary on/off from there. As long as you put the TV back in the state it thinks it is in, you are fine - and even if you do not, the help button will get it back on track.

I think that if you really need the "feeling" of direct control, instead of just having devices turn on and off and switch inputs transparently depending upon what you want to do, then the Harmony is probably not really the remote for you. You may be happier with a good programmable device oriented remote like the MX-500