I'm sure this question has been asked before, but I'm finding it difficult to feed to a search engine and retrieve relevant results so I've signed up to ask the pros.

I have a Logitech Harmony Smart Control, among other universals, and I'm being challenged time and time again by the fact that 2 of my devices do not have explicit ON/OFF controls, which often results in device power states being out of sync.

Any of you experts know of any fancy tricks for working around these limitations? I have tried running IR extenders to ensure that the signals are blasted correctly, but certain people in my household have a bad habit of hitting the same macro button twice regardless of the numerous training sessions.

Thanks in advance,
Static

There is no trick to fixing this, the only option is training, training, training your family members on using the remote the correct way.

My strategy is to not include powering up or powering down of those devices known as TOADs (toggle only actuated device) in any macros. Train people to use the remote in such a way that those devices have to be turned on and off manually using their own separate buttons. Like I have a button labelled "TV-P" for TV power to toggle the TV on and off.

Some remotes use variables to keep track of whether a device is on or off, but that scheme is not fool proof because the value of the variable can get out of synch with the power status. And there are devices that can sense whether the power is on or off.

I do wish there was a system of identifying remote-friendly devices so that we could spend our money only on devices with discrete on/off and discrete input selection.