The Harmony Ultimate series is a fantastic part of the kit Logitech Harmony Ultimate Review and Giveaway Logitech Harmony Ultimate Review and Giveaway Your living room is a mess, admit it. You are forgiven for wondering which remote controls which device. With the TV, amplifier, TiVO, BluRay player, maybe even lighting and switching activities become a long... Read More can be reprogrammed to control anything that works without infrared (even these cheap RGB LED strips) How to control your custom RGB lighting from a Harmony remote How to control your custom RGB lighting from a Harmony remote If you own a Harmony remote, you probably know that by now they can control the Phillips Hue connected bulb " "- a Wi-Fi enabled but exorbitantly priced $200 set of LED bulbs. But did you know… Read More).
It's a perfect solution, but only if your home entertainment studio is located in a single room.
With decent projectors available for under $400 ATCO Budget HD Projector with Android Built-in and Giveaway ATCO Budget HD Projector with Android Built-in and Giveaway We've shopped around for a budget LED projector to see if you can get the same big screen experience from something for half the price . It's a little under $400. Let's see if it's any good. Read More In that case, things get complicated; you can't pair a Harmony Ultimate remote with two hubs, so you'll need to buy two full $350 remotes and hubs.
For something designed to be the "ultimate" remote, this is far from ideal, and it's obviously quite expensive. The Harmony smartphone app can work with multiple hubs, but it's still not a seamless process - you have to switch hubs in the setup each time. Today I'm looking at a number of ways we can work around this to get a single system to work in two rooms.
Before we get started, it's important to define a few key terms and get past some hard limits of the Harmony Ultimate system.
IR - Infrared is an old but reliable method of device control using light that requires direct line of sight. The Harmony system can learn unknown IR commands, allowing it to control pretty much anything which has a traditional remote - check out the video below where I show off some cheap RGB LEDs built into Harmony activities.
Do you want to learn more about infrared? Try this Devil of TV Arduino Project Introducing the Devil of TV, an Easy Remote Control Arranino Prank of TV Introducing the Devil of TV, an Easy Remote Control Arduino Prank Read More, in which you will examine the signals sent by your remote control of TV.
Harmony Ultimate Hub It is the brain center of the Harmony system. It transmits IR, Bluetooth (for devices like Xbox 360), and connects to your network for control of IP devices (like Philips Hue and Nest). Includes two IR Blaster ports, useful for repeating IR signals in hard-to-reach areas like covered AV cabinets.
It can't "teach" new Bluetooth or IP commands, and it's not currently compatible with ZWave or Zigbee smart home products (although an extension hub to add these is promised). The hub can operate independently of the hardware remote by linking it with a smartphone app (and can be purchased separately for just $99).
Harmony Ultimate Remote it's a touchscreen remote that pairs with a hub. It has an IR emitter, for line-of-sight device control, although this must be manually enabled in the device settings.
Note the “Ultimate Home” series is a minor upgrade from Ultimate, capable of controlling some smarter home devices like door locks, as well as integrating with IFTTT. Logitech has promised a software upgrade path for Ultimate users (especially since you can't buy the Home edition outside of the US), but the upgrade hasn't materialized yet.
Number of devices. Regardless of how many rooms you are trying to send signals to, there is an arbitrary limit of 15 devices. You can overcome this by creating a custom device and teaching the codes for two or more devices in one, but it will take time. Use this tactic as a last resort for simple items like lighting or blinds, rather than complex home entertainment components.
30 foot range between hub and remote . The ultimate remote must stay within range of the hub to be functional. 30 feet is the stated range. In practical terms, this means that the room immediately above, below, or to the side of your center should be accessible, but any significant amount of concrete is going to put a stop to this. Parts of my house are quite old, and the walls are over a meter thick of solid stone, as expected, even the next room was unreachable. Since it is a proprietary RF signal, there is no way to extend or repeat this.
Same Wi-Fi network. If your hub is going to be more than 30 feet away from your secondary room, all is not lost. Put the remote down:You can still use the Harmony smartphone app in conjunction with the techniques listed below to gain some degree of multi-room control.
The only limitation in this case is that the same Wi-Fi network name must be used. I ran into issues where I had multiple Wi-Fi networks to cover the whole house, and had previously named them differently so I could tell which was best for upstairs or downstairs. Despite being on the same subnet, the Harmony app refused to connect from the Wi-Fi network above to the Wi-Fi below, until I gave both networks the same name. It doesn't matter if you're on a different access point, as long as it's the same network name and everything is connected to a central point somewhere (your main router).
Game systems. This is where it gets really tricky. Harmony can control Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii/Wii U via Bluetooth, so they must be within range of the hub, regardless of where the infrared signals are sent. It controls the Xbox One via infrared, but it requires very precise placement of an infrared blaster, so while this could be placed in another room, it may require more infrared replay.
The Harmony system I can't control the Playstation 4 absolutely. That said, unless you're using your gaming system as a media player, you're going to need the controller anyway, so it might not matter so much that the Harmony remote is limited in that regard. Have Harmony turn everything else on while you grab the controller.
If in doubt, use the compatibility checker to determine how your system is controlled.
With those strict limits in mind, let's look at solutions for extending Harmony's infrared signal to other parts of your home.
The Powermid X10 is a simple and cost-effective way to wirelessly repeat an infrared signal, claiming a theoretical maximum distance of 100ft. At around $45, it's not going to break the bank.
It's a plug-and-play solution:just place the receiver within sight of your hub, and it should pick up every IR signal in the room, blindly repeating them back to the emitter in your second room. Make sure you don't have more than one of the same device if you use this approach.
The IR blasters supplied with your hub are designed to repeat the main IR signal in confined spaces, but you'll often find that you don't need them as the main IR signal is strong enough to reach everything without a problem. If that's the case, you can use one or more of the triggers in your second room.
For lengths up to 75 feet, users have reported success attaching IR cable directly to Cat5 Ethernet cabling. This can be a dedicated cable run or part of an existing 100 MBit network. For Gigabit network speeds, all twisted pairs are used in Cat5E or Cat6 cabling, so this would not be possible.
To go a more non-destructive route, buy 2.5mm mono to 3.5mm plug adapters and use standard stereo cabling to extend them. AVS forum user Sylvain has links to the required parts and a full guide.
It's worth keeping in mind that these "mini-blasters" aren't as powerful as the hub, so they'll need to be located closer to the devices you're controlling.
In addition to the IR signal that is ejected from the hub, the remote control has an IR emitter. Normally this isn't used, it's just not needed as the hub does it. However, for troublesome devices, you can configure the signal to come from the remote as well as or instead of the hub. (You can also configure which of the IR triggers if any are repeated, which could be useful for controlling the same devices in different rooms.)
So you can set everything in the second entertainment room to be controlled directly from the remote, while the main room remains under control of the hub.
Using this method, you are limited to using the physical remote. This won't work if you're controlling things from your smartphone, so it might be a good idea also Extend one of the IR blasters. And as mentioned above, the remote must still be within range of the hub at all times (approximately 30 feet).
If you're likely to only be using one of your home entertainment rooms at any one time, you might consider running an HDMI signal to the secondary room. Place all source components in the main entertainment room and keep the secondary room as an extension containing only output devices such as a projector and surround sound system; all source switching will be done in the main room.
HDMI extenders cost around $50-$100 and need a dedicated installation of Cat6 cabling; You will also need to purchase separate IR emitters and a suitable adapter to connect the 2.5mm mono mini-blaster port on the Harmony hub, with the 3.5mm mono input on the extender.
As you can see, there are some insurmountable limitations in the Harmony Ultimate system, though with a little commitment and careful planning you can go further From functionality to another room. Still confused about what you can and can't do? Do you have another method that we have not described? Ask away or let us know in the comments.
