Need help with Logitech Harmony Setup

sisintyvaibhav · August 25, 2017, 4:00pm

I am a non-developer who is trying to play with Home Assistant. Was sucessful at installing Hassio and and one TP Link switch by adding relevant code on configuration file.

I am trying to integrate Logitech harmony and having a really hard time. Since its a auto discovery service, it discovered itself and all i can see is one button which is under remote and it says bedroom ( name of my harmony ) and there is a toggle button which does nothing.

I read all the docs available and I can see, it auto created a file called, "harmony_bedroom.yaml " which has all the activities and button options but i dont see anything on the GUI. All i see is one button, is there anything else that i should be doing for the buttons to show up?

Please help

treno · August 25, 2017, 4:03pm

That’s all there is in terms of built-in UI for the harmony component.

sisintyvaibhav · August 25, 2017, 4:09pm

Wont i be able to control activities and devices using HA ?

All i see is one button for now which does nothing.

Bahnburner · August 25, 2017, 4:22pm

You may want to look through this thread as there were several methods posted that utilize other HA components to build an interface for the Harmony component.

sisintyvaibhav · August 25, 2017, 4:33pm

The above thread talks about better organising of the components. Much more complicated I feel. I am trying to make basic things work here.

I only see one button now, which says bedroom ( name of the harmony ) but does nothing.

I would like to see the list of activities atleast which are on my harmony.

Bahnburner · August 25, 2017, 4:52pm

The simplest method would be to add a template switch for each activity using the snippet below. Anything in all caps you will need to replace with information from your harmony_config. You will need to have a switch for every activity that you would like to control.

switch:
  - platform: template
    switches:
      ACTIVITY NAME 1:
        value_template: "{{ is_state('remote.bedroom', 'ACTIVITY NAME') }}"
        turn_on:
          service: remote.turn_on
          entity_id: remote.bedroom
          data: 
            activity: ACTIVITY ID
        turn_off:
          service: remote.turn_off
          entity_id: remote.bedroom
          data:
            activity: ACTIVITY ID
      ACTIVITY NAME 2:
        ...
        ...

sisintyvaibhav · August 25, 2017, 4:55pm

platform: template

Should i change platform : template to something like platform : harmony ?

Bahnburner · August 25, 2017, 5:08pm

Nope. It’s a template switch. It’s a fake switch that triggers a service for another component.

sisintyvaibhav · August 25, 2017, 5:11pm

Got it. Updated

updated this code

switch:
  - platform: template
    switches:
      Switch xbox:
        value_template: "{{ is_state('remote.bedroom', 'Switch xbox') }}"
        turn_on:
          service: remote.turn_on
          entity_id: remote.bedroom
          data:
            activity: 25977203
        turn_off:
          service: remote.turn_off
          entity_id: remote.bedroom
          data:
            activity: 25977203

Now my config file looks like this

homeassistant:
  # Name of the location where Home Assistant is running
  name: Home
  # Location required to calculate the time the sun rises and sets
  latitude: 17.3753
  longitude: 78.4744
  # Impacts weather/sunrise data (altitude above sea level in meters)
  elevation: 500
  # metric for Metric, imperial for Imperial
  unit_system: metric
  # Pick yours from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones
  time_zone: Asia/Kolkata

# Show links to resources in log and frontend
introduction:

# Enables the frontend
frontend:

# Enables configuration UI
config:

http:
  # Uncomment this to add a password (recommended!)
  # api_password: PASSWORD
  # Uncomment this if you are using SSL/TLS, running in Docker container, etc.
  # base_url: example.duckdns.org:8123

# Checks for available updates
# Note: This component will send some information about your system to
# the developers to assist with development of Home Assistant.
# For more information, please see:
# https://home-assistant.io/blog/2016/10/25/explaining-the-updater/
updater:
  # Optional, allows Home Assistant developers to focus on popular components.
  # include_used_components: true

# Discover some devices automatically
discovery:

# Allows you to issue voice commands from the frontend in enabled browsers
conversation:

# Enables support for tracking state changes over time
history:

# View all events in a logbook
logbook:

# Track the sun
sun:

# Weather prediction
sensor:
  - platform: yr

# Text to speech
tts:
  - platform: google

group: !include groups.yaml
automation: !include automations.yaml

switch:
  - platform: template
    switches:
      Switch xbox:
        value_template: "{{ is_state('remote.bedroom', 'Switch xbox') }}"
        turn_on:
          service: remote.turn_on
          entity_id: remote.bedroom
          data:
            activity: 25977203
        turn_off:
          service: remote.turn_off
          entity_id: remote.bedroom
          data:
            activity: 25977203

Will update you if it works.

My HA taking incredibly long time to restart after i hit restart server. Is this usual?Preformatted text

Bahnburner · August 25, 2017, 5:18pm

Please review the blue box at the top of your page and edit your post to fix the formatting. Without that, it’s near impossible to review your config for errors.

sisintyvaibhav · August 25, 2017, 5:24pm

error

Bobby_Nobble · August 25, 2017, 5:24pm

Depends what you consider a long time, for a Pi best part of a minute isn’t unusual, the Mac Mini i used to use only took a few seconds.

I have my Harmony doing all sorts with HA and will be happy to help you as I can but I think you really need to back track and understand what HA is all about, it does very little out of the box, it’s all about what you tell it to do. In fact, I’d turn discovery off before you go any further as all that seems to do is mislead noobs and cause the log to fill up with errors.

You also want to think about what you actually want to achieve with it, it’s a bit rubbish as a remote replacement but excellent automation, in the same way Harmony make OK remotes but the Activities are what it’s all about.

As an example, if you just want to turn an activity on, the Harmony remote is the best choice, involving HA is just overly complicating it for no gain, BUT if you want to sense when the TV is turned on and then automatically set your system to a particular activity and turn some lights on or off HA is where it’s at.

sisintyvaibhav · August 25, 2017, 5:35pm

I am trying to get started with HA. I know HA is all about automations and thats what it is best at. What am trying to achieve here with HA is to make it one for all remote controller to start with. I have multuple devices resulting in multiple apps.

Bahnburner · August 25, 2017, 5:43pm

It was the space in the switch name throwing it off. Don’t forget you can always run hass --script check_config to verify your configuration file before restarting home assistant.

Try this:

switch:
  - platform: template
      switch_xbox:
        friendly_name: 'Switch xbox'
        value_template: "{{ is_state('remote.bedroom', 'Switch xbox') }}"
        turn_on:
          service: remote.turn_on
          entity_id: remote.bedroom
          data:
            activity: 25977203
        turn_off:
          service: remote.turn_off
          entity_id: remote.bedroom
          data:
            activity: 25977203

sisintyvaibhav · August 25, 2017, 5:53pm

error again. This is what the log says

2017-08-25 23:19:13 ERROR (SyncWorker_0) [homeassistant.util.yaml] mapping values are not allowed here
  in "/config/configuration.yaml", line 66, column 18
2017-08-25 23:19:13 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.bootstrap] Error loading /config/configuration.yaml: mapping values are not allowed here
  in "/config/configuration.yaml", line 66, column 18

sisintyvaibhav · August 25, 2017, 6:17pm

it hasnt loaded back yet. I cant see any UI yet. It just says site cant be reached.

2017-08-25 23:30:23 ERROR (SyncWorker_0) [homeassistant.util.yaml] mapping values are not allowed here
  in "/config/configuration.yaml", line 66, column 18
2017-08-25 23:30:23 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.bootstrap] Error loading /config/configuration.yaml: mapping values are not allowed here
  in "/config/configuration.yaml", line 66, column 18

what should i be doing. Its been over 30 mins now.

Bahnburner · August 25, 2017, 6:41pm

Sorry, I ran out to lunch with some coworkers.

I would suggest determining what is located at line 66 and verifying that it’s indented correctly. The snippet I posted for you I verified as good in my own config.

Bahnburner · August 25, 2017, 6:44pm

Actually, it looks like I left out the switches: line when I posted it on here…

switch:
  - platform: template'
    switches:
      switch_xbox:
        friendly_name: 'Switch xbox'
        value_template: "{{ is_state('remote.bedroom', 'Switch xbox') }}"
        turn_on:
          service: remote.turn_on
          entity_id: remote.bedroom
          data:
            activity: 25977203
        turn_off:
          service: remote.turn_off
          entity_id: remote.bedroom
          data:
            activity: 25977203

sisintyvaibhav · August 25, 2017, 6:52pm

Updated the config code. It didnt load till now, If there are issues, the UI wouldnt load? went on for over an hour. Hope it works now.

Bahnburner · August 25, 2017, 6:56pm

If there’s a single character out of place in the config, home assistant will normally not load at all. It’s best practice to run hass --script check_config after updating your config, and before restarting home assistant, so that you can catch any errors before shutting the system down.