Is the Harmony Hub Extender Dead?

[kenm]

I can't find anything that "officially" says it's been discontinued but I can't seem to find it anywhere. All online stores say "Out of Stock".

Searched "harmony hub extender" and "915-000253"

Thoughts?
Ken

[sirmeili]

It may be dead. I grabbed mine as a refurb from Amazon a few months ago. Sad really because it could have been awesome.

[kenm]

That's too bad. It did look promising even though there's a limited number of physical HA control buttons on the remotes. I was going to venture out this weekend and have a look at the touchscreen remotes to see if additional buttons could be added there.

I'll start looking at setting up HA-Bridge to see if I can use that with a touchscreen remote for controlling lights. I built a basic TiVo remote using HSTouch and I've found it somewhat cumbersome to use since I have to keep looking down to find the Play/Pause and FF buttons. Not sure how having both an HSTouch remote for some functions and the physical remote for others is going to work out. Time will tell.

Ken

[integlikewhoa]

That's too bad. It did look promising even though there's a limited number of physical HA control buttons on the remotes. I was going to venture out this weekend and have a look at the touchscreen remotes to see if additional buttons could be added there.

I'll start looking at setting up HA-Bridge to see if I can use that with a touchscreen remote for controlling lights. I built a basic TiVo remote using HSTouch and I've found it somewhat cumbersome to use since I have to keep looking down to find the Play/Pause and FF buttons. Not sure how having both an HSTouch remote for some functions and the physical remote for others is going to work out. Time will tell.

Ken

I have been running the HA-Bridge for around 4 years now. Never understood why anyone would waste the money on the "Extender". I run the Ha-Bridge on the same as my HS3 and it can control anything HS3 can not limited to z-wave devices.

[kenm]

I have been running the HA-Bridge for around 4 years now. Never understood why anyone would waste the money on the "Extender". I run the Ha-Bridge on the same as my HS3 and it can control anything HS3 can not limited to z-wave devices.

Thanks! I got HA-Bridge up and running and was able to add it to my hub. I added a test floor lamp and seems to be working. Now to go off and start reading so I can learn more about HA-Bridge.

Ken

[sirmeili]

I have been running the HA-Bridge for around 4 years now. Never understood why anyone would waste the money on the "Extender". I run the Ha-Bridge on the same as my HS3 and it can control anything HS3 can not limited to z-wave devices.

I got it because:

1) I wanted to see if I could get the plugin to control and monitor devices through it (I can)
2) It supports Zigbee (which I wanted to play with, even with their limited support)

If it were not for my plugin though, I probably wouldn't have gotten it. They really limit how you can control the devices via the remote.

[kenm]

Based on the dizzying amount of posts I've read today and today's experiments, HA-Bridge will be of limited use for me.

1. Since HA-Bridge is using JSON to control the HS device, this appears to be one way. In other words, The HA-Bridge device doesn't update in the Harmony app if the HS device is controlled from outside of the Harmony app.

2. I have "Smart Control" remotes instead of "Companion" remotes so I don't have the Home Control buttons. I can't seem to assign a home control device to any buttons on my remote. (Does anyone know the part number for the companion remote?)

3. In typical, lame, Logitech fashion, you can't add a home control device to an activity using the desktop software. You MUST use the mobile app to do this. Even more interesting is when you "Sync" the activity and then open it up with the desktop software, it doesn't even show the home control device associated with the activity.

I haven't explored the touchscreens yet but I'm not likely to spend $150+ just to control lights when the basic remote does most of what I need.

Ken