I have run into a couple of problems while trying to setup my Harmony 880. I have 2 activities :

Activity : Watch TV
Device : PVR
Device : TV
Device : AV Receiver
Device : Felston DD540
Device : Light Controller


Activity : Watch DVD
Device : Computer
Device : TV
Device : AV Receiver

The Watch TV activity has 12 custom buttons. The most frequently used 8 are nicely organized on the first page. I am trying to add one more to the second page. I enter the label "Surround" and select "SurMode" for the AV Receiver as the 13th custom button and hit "Done". The problem is two fold, first the new "Surround" button gets placed on page 1 and bumps one of my other frequently used buttons to page two. Second, it automagically adds a custom "Surround" button to my Watch DVD activity. It appears that the Logitech software doesn't give the user control on the layout of the LCD which makes the remote very inconvenient to use. In an attempt to work around this problem, I deleted the custom "Surround" button from Watch TV (which also caused it to be deleted from Watch DVD) and assigned "SurrMode" to the unused hard button "Menu". This returned page one of Watch TV to the desired layout and I could still change the surround mode using the Menu button. However, Watch DVD now has the Menu button assigned to "DVD Menu" (the desired setting) and "SurrMode". This certainly can't be by design, if so the Harmony 880 is basically useless. What's the point of having activities if I can't assign different commands depending on the activity? Has anyone else experienced this?

It's working as designed. First, when you add a custom button it will automatically add the same button to all activities that use that device. It's a benefit if you're adding the same buttons to multiple activities, but if you just want to add it to one it's a pain in the rear. For now the workaround is to use a clone device (copy), set the power on the clone device to "no power buttons" and use the command from the clone device in the custom button. Since the clone device isn't in the other activity it won't propogate the custom button changes.

The other problem is that the custom buttons are sorted by device first so the button you're adding is grouped with the other buttons from the same device.

Logitech is aware of both issues and is working on fixes or new features.

Thanks for the info. That is truely sad news. I noticed that the custom buttons are sorted by device first but it still doesn't account for the way it adds them to the display on the remote. Here's my custom buttons in the order that Logitech displays them on the website... (device order is PVR, TV, AVR, Felston, Lights)

TiVo : PVR Device
ThmbUp : PVR Device
List : PVR Device
ThmbDn : PVR Device
LiveTV : PVR Device
Dash : PVR Device
TV : TV Device
Computer : TV Device
Surround : AV Receiver Device
Delay+ : Felston Device
Delay- : Felston Device
Dim : Light Device
Bright : Light Device

As you can see the "Surround" button should be on page 2 even in this undesired organization. However, the first page of the LCD comes up with:

TiVo | ThmbUp
List | ThmbDn
LiveTV | Dash
Surround | TV

I hope it doesn't take them long to fix this...

It's correct - it's putting the Receiver custom commands right after the Tivo commands. It orders the devices in "priority" order - however harmony decides the priority. In this case it must be Tivo, then Receiver, then TV.

Another workaround would be to remove devices from your activity one by one and add them back in the order that you want. Then you'll have to re-enter your LCD commands.

I know, It's a pain in the **** but doable.

Just remember the order, under your customize buttons screen:

- Devices from left to right, the most left one will see the LCD commands appear first.
- Indivudual LCD commands order (per device), when you enter them like this:

1
2
3
4
5
6

They will show:

1 2
3 4
5 6

on the LCD display.