JP1 Remotes

ledan,

I don't think Harmony has anything like the RF extender box that came with your 9910. Are you using it? If not you might as well have an 8910, right?

I'm using a 9910 in my movie room where my components are housed in a built-in wall Middle Atlantic rack off to the side. I bought a 9910 specifically because of the extender and I like JP1 programmability a lot.

My remotes: 9910, 8910, 8811 and I've just bought an Harmony 880. I had a deal on my Harmony just after starting this thread. Got it for 96$ Can.
http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin/mb ... ht=staples


Harmony 890 is coming out soon with an RF extender. Around 500$.

Harmony is a very beautiful remote. It can do what I want and I like it. Having my Harmony doing what I want was very fast. But, I must say that it is not as flexible as JP1.


Choosing between both, I would choose JP1 because of flexibility and cheap price of JP1 remotes. I love my 9910 and would be very disapointed to have problem with. In that case, I would go for an RF extender remote for sure.

The Robman wrote:But, it's not a hard button remote, so you will need to look at the screen alot, which a JP1 user doesn't have to do, and you'll need to start saving for it now, which a JP1 user doesn't have to do.

I know, it's old - but it's just *so* wrong I can't let it go. The only Harmony remote with this problem is the newest one - the 1000. The older ones have a 10s of hard buttons that can be found by feel no problem. Further, the soft buttons are just labels - the actual buttons are beside the labels, and you can find those by feel.

From what I can tell, most of the things that the JP1 can do that the Harmonies can't are designed to get around limitations on the JP1 remotes. ToadToggle? The remote does that automatically. LKP and the like - I've already got potentially infinite numbers of buttons with soft labels, so I can use those. Having two meanings on one button with different press styles might be nice, but it doesn't seem like a crucial issue. Device multiplexing and similar hacks - the typical Harmony remote has 16 devices, 16 activities, and in some cases distinct sound and picture modes for the activities.

Now, for something the harmony can do that I suspect the JP1 remotes can't - the "Help" button. This walks through every device in the system, *asking* if it's in the right state, and fixing it if not. This is the the marriage-saver feature that lets you justify spending hundreds of dollars on a remote to your spouse.

On the downside, the conspiracy theorists are right. Last week, Logitech decided that they didn't want to support the ability to have a button send commands to more than one device. They removed it from the web site. Updating your remote removed every non-standard button from every device that participated in such a button. The feeling on discovering this is akin to coming home and finding that the front door open and the stereo missing.

mwm wrote:

The Robman wrote:But, it's not a hard button remote, so you will need to look at the screen alot, which a JP1 user doesn't have to do, and you'll need to start saving for it now, which a JP1 user doesn't have to do.

I know, it's old - but it's just *so* wrong I can't let it go. The only Harmony remote with this problem is the newest one - the 1000. The older ones have a 10s of hard buttons that can be found by feel no problem. Further, the soft buttons are just labels - the actual buttons are beside the labels, and you can find those by feel.

Like you said, you are replying to an old thread from 2005. The Harmony that I was talking about was this one, which has just 12 buttons, so you need to use the screen for everything else...

mwm,

I've been watching and reading with interest as you lurk about here the past several days "investigating" whether or not you want a JP1 remote, hoping that the folks here can convince you, but so far, you have dismissed every argument for JP1 pretty much out of hand. (Even digging up a thread dormant for over a year!) It seems you have decided that JP1 is not for you. If the shortcomings of JP1 remotes are "dealbreakers" then so be it. That's cool.

If you don't want a JP1 remote, then don't get one. Nobody here benefits one way or another from your decision. Get your Harmony or Pronto or whatever.

Should you decide that JP1 is a direction you want to explore, for a very small financial investment, and potentially a somewhat greater one in time and learning, then the community here stands ready to help you - likely more effectively than any tech support from any Harmony or Pronto official sites. The one benefit I would point out is that a failed experiment with JP1 will cost you much less money than a failed experiment with Harmony or Pronto. (Although only you can put a value on your time.)

So choose and live with it. I suspect you will not find many sympathetic ears to your arguments about the shortcomings of JP1 remotes. Obviously the majority of the users here have weighed those arguments IN FAVOR of a JP1 remote. We are apparently somewhat less sophisticated HT users than you and your family.

mwm wrote: From what I can tell, most of the things that the JP1 can do that the Harmonies can't are designed to get around limitations on the JP1 remotes. ToadToggle? The remote does that automatically. LKP and the like - I've already got potentially infinite numbers of buttons with soft labels, so I can use those. Having two meanings on one button with different press styles might be nice, but it doesn't seem like a crucial issue. Device multiplexing and similar hacks - the typical Harmony remote has 16 devices, 16 activities, and in some cases distinct sound and picture modes for the activities.

Long key presses are one of my favorite features of extended JP1 remotes. I can push a device button to control a device, or I can hold it down to set up my system. For example, I can hold down the DVD button, and my TV, receiver and DVD player will be powered on (if they weren't already on), my TV and receiver will be set to the correct input, and any other equipment I want off will be powered off.

I can also, for example, push Menu on my remote to activate the DVD player's menu function, or I can hold down Menu to activate the "Top Menu" function.

As for Harmony's 16 devices and activities, my URC-8910 and 9910 support 16 devices and an unlimited number of "activities". Is "activity" anything more than a fancy way to say "macro"?

mwm wrote: Now, for something the harmony can do that I suspect the JP1 remotes can't - the "Help" button. This walks through every device in the system, *asking* if it's in the right state, and fixing it if not. This is the the marriage-saver feature that lets you justify spending hundreds of dollars on a remote to your spouse.

I would have a harder time justifying spending hundreds of dollars on a remote to myself, knowing that I could accomplish the same things at a small fraction of the cost. JP1 offered solutions to some particular problems in my setup that I'm not sure that Harmony could provide. For example, I have two CD Sony 300-CD changers. Rather than assign each player to a separate device key, I can press CD to alternate control of the two players.

I have a second stereo receiver that I use to power outdoor speakers. By hitting shift-RECV on my remote, I not only switch control from my main home theater receiver to my stereo receiver ("outdoor mode"), but I completely change the way my remote behaves. For instance, pushing CD sets the second receiver to CD mode, turns the CD player on and sets the remote to control the CD player (in normal "indoor" mode, pushing CD would only set the remote to control the CD player). Similar functions are defined for the SAT, RECV (tuner) and AUX (iPod) buttons. In outdoor mode, I have purposely disabled many functions available in indoor mode, so that someone who is inside, watching a DVD for example, will not be affected by someone who is controlling the system from outside. Pushing shift-RECV again toggles back to normal mode.

Not only that, but as I understand it, a Harmony solution involving an RF base (which allows me to control my equipment from outside) would run me about $400+, as opposed to $40 for a URC-9910 with RF base included.

I think some people have a hard time imagining spending under $100 for a remote when they've got several thousand invested in their home theater equipment. Between my speakers, TV and other electronics, I've probably got over $6k invested, but spending less than 1% of that on a remote did not bother me one bit because my remote does everything I need it to do, and the wonderful software and support provided by the people on this forum gives me complete control. And, since the software can be downloaded onto my PC (as opposed to being run from a website), I never have to worry about the authors coming along and removing features out from under me (not that they would ever do that, because they understand what users do with the software and why).

mwm wrote: On the downside, the conspiracy theorists are right. Last week, Logitech decided that they didn't want to support the ability to have a button send commands to more than one device. They removed it from the web site. Updating your remote removed every non-standard button from every device that participated in such a button. The feeling on discovering this is akin to coming home and finding that the front door open and the stereo missing.

That sounds like quite a limitation. Doesn't this affect the ability to execute activities, such as my DVD example above?

--Nathan

floyd1977 wrote:Is "activity" anything more than a fancy way to say "macro"?

I think it is more (but I've never used a Harmony).

I think it involves what we would call a macro to initiate it, but then involves what in extender terminolgy would be a dynamic home theater mode (enable vol keys of one device and maybe channel keys of another device and transport keys of a third device). I have no clue whether a Harmony does that more or less flexibly than a JP1 extender).

If their dynamic HT isn't more flexible, then an "activity" isn't just a macro, but in an extender it is duplicated by just a macro.

johnsfine,
You're right that the activities are like what we do with macros in the extended remote.

Floyd,
I made many of the same points you did about how the remote works in the other thread. I agree that LKP and DSM (in the extended remotes) are awesome.

Best,
jeff

johnsfine wrote:

floyd1977 wrote:Is "activity" anything more than a fancy way to say "macro"?

I think it is more (but I've never used a Harmony).

I think it involves what we would call a macro to initiate it, but then involves what in extender terminolgy would be a dynamic home theater mode (enable vol keys of one device and maybe channel keys of another device and transport keys of a third device). I have no clue whether a Harmony does that more or less flexibly than a JP1 extender).

If their dynamic HT isn't more flexible, then an "activity" isn't just a macro, but in an extender it is duplicated by just a macro.

I guess I've been using the 8910/9910 extender for so long that I forget what is not possible in the unextended version.

The one thing you can't do easily with a harmony remote is have them everywhere.

I've probably got $300 invested in remotes, but I have them everywhere! After Rob fills my next order, I'll have 21 Jp1 remotes. I have them on both sides of the bed. I have one near each seating area in my family room, one in the kitchen, one in the basement, 5 in my vacation home.


Try that with a harmony, or a pronto, or any other high end remote.

vickyg2003 wrote:The one thing you can't do easily with a harmony remote is have them everywhere.

I've probably got $300 invested in remotes, but I have them everywhere! After Rob fills my next order, I'll have 21 Jp1 remotes. I have them on both sides of the bed. I have one near each seating area in my family room, one in the kitchen, one in the basement, 5 in my vacation home.


Try that with a harmony, or a pronto, or any other high end remote.

Presumably you use no ToadTogs, or else you ought to have chaos!

CapnTrips wrote:Presumably you use no ToadTogs, or else you ought to have chaos!

Yes, if I was trying to track the state of my devices with toadtogs I'd be in deep doodoo. For me, having the remote within reach, is much more of a effort savings, than using a toadtog. However, I do use toadtogs to keep track of my mute status to turn on/off close captioning and if the cc is out of synch, my users can't figure out how to turn it off.

I really like that I don't have to hunt the remotes for features though. I have a hodge podge of equipment. Samsung, Toshibiba, Magnavox, Zenith, Hitachi, Sony, Sanyo, Pioneer, Panasonic, Bose and its great to pick up the remote and KNOW where the keys are without having to do a lot of searching. No matter where I am, or which equipment I'm using, the basic keys are in the same place.