Difference?

[benrjunk]

Hi,

What is the difference (functionally) between this plugin and the other/older HarmonyHub plugin? They both cost the same and both work with Win & Linux. Is there any reason I should go for this version over the other?

Sincerely,

Ben

[randy]

Hi,

What is the difference (functionally) between this plugin and the other/older HarmonyHub plugin? They both cost the same and both work with Win & Linux. Is there any reason I should go for this version over the other?

Sincerely,

Ben

Jon00 also has a Harmony control script, but it is Windows only. The difference (as far as I know) between this plug-in and the other two is that this one is updated by a push from the hub, instead of requiring polling. The result is that this plug-in is faster responding to hub changes and can be configured to trigger Events when an activity is launched or if it completes. The other two will report an Activity has launched only after polling the hub.

I have tried all three and all three will do essentially the same thing. None of the three will report device changes, only activities. All three can initiate control of devices and activities.


Frank has designed in a lot more configurability into this plug-in than the other two.

As far as I know all three are not relying on a published API from Logitech, they are all reverse engineered.

[sirmeili]

I will expand some on Randy's answer. And to be fair, I've paid for the other harmony plugin and used it for years and have tried Jon00's plugin. Both are good, but obviously I am biased and think mine is better

Polling:
My plugin doesn't require polling. It is notified of events directly from the hub. This means as soon as an activity is started my plugin knows. Also because I have direct communication, I can tell when an activity starts, when it finishes, and when the hub updates it's internal ID.

As for the other two, the big difference is that I believe Rein recommends that his plugin doesn't poll faster than once a minute. Jon00 recommends no faster than every 5 seconds.

API:
None of the 3 plugins use the offical Logitech API (which doesn't offer anywhere near the control/monitoring that any 3 of the plugins currently have). I reverse engineered a lot of the API that the hub has. Jon00 uses a Java library that exposes a REST aPI, but likely uses the same methods I use. I'm not sure about Rein's plugin, but I would have to assume he is also using a third party library that he uses to poll the hub.

Also note that when I was using Reins plugin an executive would occasionally consume a core on my couch and not release it until I foce closed it. He's done a rewrite since then, so that may no longer be able issue. I remember it was an issue with the library he was using, which may be different now.

Other features:
Because I use the Native API, I have access to a bunch of goodies and can do things that I don't believe the other plugins can do. For instance, I can access when a sleep timer is set and allow you to set a sleep timer.

One way I use the Sleep timer is that if it's set, I set a virtual device that says someone in the living room is sleeping (the kids most likely). This way, when the hub does turn everything off, I don't turn off the ceiling fans (normally at night, when the hubs and lights are turned off, the ceiling fans turn off automatically)


Benefits of real time communication:

This is my best example of why I prefer my plugin. Since I can tell when an activity starts and ends and when the power off sequence starts and ends I can do some interesting things:

When any activity starts: I can turn on the lights. This makes it feel like the hub itself is turning on the lights and since I am starting it when the activity is starting it happens at the same time the activity is starting.

For turning off the lights, I actually prefer that it waits until after the hub is done, so this is an instance where I like the flexibility to wait for the power off sequence to finish as opposed to turning off lights as it's turning off.

The latter one could be done with the other plugins and polling, but the randomness of when it occurs always made me feel like it wasn't as good as it could be. This is why I went on the adventure to write my plugin. for instance, I never liked that my ceiling fan wouldn't turn on for up to a minute after turning on the TV...now it happens instantly.

[sirmeili]

Another difference between mine and the other paid plugin. Mine uses one instance to control multiple hubs. The other one requires a plugin instance for each hub. Since I haven't tested that plugin out using more than one instance, I can't besure, but I would assume it uses more resources than mine would for the same number of harmony hubs.

I believe jon00 recommend no more than 10hubs per instance on his plugin (the free, windows only one).

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[benrjunk]

Thanks. Purchased your plugin last night. Working well so far.
Thanks
Ben