Native logitech harmony support

[kohai]

Yesterday I googled about this and today it is a reality.  Maybe I'm magic.

 

https://support.myharmony.com/en-us/harmony-experience-with-amazon-alexa

[stusviews]

Thanks. Up and running. Well, at least I can turn thing on and off. Somewhat annoying that I have to disable the skill to make changes and then re-enable the skill again to effect those changes

[kohai]

It took me two tries to get it linked, but the first test has now worked.

[blueman2]

Working here.  Another thing now offloaded from my RaspberryPi!

[whywork]

Meh!  /rant on

 

Only ONE harmony hub can be linked. (I have one upstairs and one downstairs).  Talk about NOT making it a no-brainer to buy more harmony hubs.

 

Can only control one SCENE/ACTIVITY at a time.  Want to turn on the TV and then decide to lower the shades - can't unless the activity has shades closing automatically anyway.

 

Not granular enough.   I had already ditched the included harmony remotes and just use the Logitech Harmony app on my iPad, etc. to issue individual commands.  I see no way to do this with voice control without manually creating lots and lots of individual activities. (power on, power off, switch to input 2, volume up, volume down)

 

Worst still.  The logitech support site recently (a couple of months ago) changed from a standard web forum site, to a new-and-improved social networking site - there is no ability to see/find threads from the past,  when you back out of a particular discussion, you are sent back to the "home page" showing the last five "discussions".   If I were cynical, I would say Logitech implemented this change to make it harder for users to request and get support.

 

/rant off

 

Lots of promise. Could have been great.  I can't see Logitech being successful here - anybody remember the Logitech Revue; another instance where Logitech was dependent on a third party?

 

I hope I am misconstruing/misunderstanding how limited it currently is.

Edited October 29, 2016 by whywork

[stusviews]

The ISY can't turn on the TV and lower the shades unless you create a program (Activity in Harmony terms) that does both. In fact, there's no way to do anything with voice control and the ISY and the Echo unless you create lots and lots of scenes and programs (one for each activity). I do agree that the skill needs improvement, for example, there's no command for the volume, play and pause, but this is only the first release.

 

BTW, I found Harmony support to be very helpful, but that's just my experience.

[stusviews]

There's a new Harmony Alexa (red) skill that allows pause, play and stop. Also volume can be raised and lowered. But, you have to tell Alexa to ask Harmony to perform the task. The old (blue) skill should be left in place for voice commands that you don't want to ask Harmony first (i.e, turn on or off).