Harmony hub

Add-ons Bindings
1

Hi together,

I am currently thinking about purchasing a harmony remote and maybe hub too. And now I want to know what exactly I can do with harmony hub and Openhab binding.
It would be awesome if I could choose cinema mode on my remote and then Openhab reacts with dimming lights and so on…

Is that possible?
What other features Incan expect of that binding?

2

Yes, you can do this easily. The harmony hub is great, we hardly ever use the remote. In fact, to be honest we hardly even use OpenHAB GUI to control the TV, as we have Amazon Echo so use the Harmony skill in Alexa so just ask Alexa to turn the TV on etc. Changes get picked up by the harmony binding in OpenHAB, so you can use that to detect changes to items and run rules as well if necessary. One OpenHAB related (non-cloud / non-Alexa skill) that I do use however, is an item (“proxy” switch) called “Movie Night” where I just say “Alexa, turn on movie night” and via a rule, she will turn all living room lights off, dim the dining room light (for some ambience), turn on TV/Netflix, turn on the amp etc. Very straight forward. I’m not a big fan of cloud hosted skills (although that is fairly core with the echo itself), so run as few skills on it as possible, but the harmony skill for the echo is too good not to use (use voice to change volume up/down, change channels etc) Combine with the OpenHAB binding for setting the scene, its brilliant.

3

I don’t use Alexa, but I expect it works similar with Google Home.

4

I use KODI on a rpi with a Harmony Hub and the FLIRC controlling it.
Using this combination I can detect if I am watching TV or a Movie and if I am paused, playing or stopped. To be honest you could probably get away without a harmony hub and just use a FLIRC and any old remote you have laying around so check out the FLIRC and what it can do first especially if you use KODI.

My lights change automatically if it detects I am playing a movie or have paused the movie. Great if you like the room dark and the moment pause is pressed on the harmony remote the lights come up so I can grab another beer. Just as chimera wrote I also can disable this behaviour by using google home to flick a switch via voice commands.

Mythtv allows live TV to be watched in Kodi and I also have this same behaviour for live TV. Kodi also allows Openhab to send text to your screen whilst you are watching content, so it could alert you to the front doorbell or your phone ringing etc…

5

I use a Harmony remote/hub because my family didn’t like full touchscreen controls. They prefer having buttons…

For my set up, all of my devices are located in a remote rack (STB’s, amps, HDMI switcher, Roku). I use the harmony remote to select view/listening options (Watch TV, Netflix, Pandora, etc.) which are controlled through OH. I have an additional script I use to control my DirectTV STB’s through my home network using REST commands (using python Evdev script).

All work well and I don’t have to point the remote because it doesn’t use infrared at all, which is nice.

Oh, I also use the hue emulation binding to program buttons on the remote to turn lights on/off.

6

Can you share your rules and item setup for the Play/Pause button to dim and undim your lights?

I am having issues here: Harmony ButtonPress Rules only working if sent via Paper UI

Thanks,

Dan

7

@dan003400
This is what I use, I have a virtual switch called TVDimming so I can disable this behaviour by asking google to turn off tv dimming. If it is disabled it will auto turn on next time I use the harmony remote to select Kodi activity. The lamp in my room has 5 globes.

rule "Change lights on play/pause"
	when
		Item myKodi_control changed
	then
		switch(myKodi_control.state){
			case PLAY :
				if(TVDimming.state==ON){
				LoungeLamp1.sendCommand(OFF);
				LoungeLamp2.sendCommand(OFF);
				LoungeLamp3.sendCommand(OFF);
				LoungeLamp4.sendCommand(OFF);
				LoungeLamp5.sendCommand(ON);
				}
					
			case PAUSE :
				if(TVDimming.state==ON){
				LoungeLamp1.sendCommand(ON);
				LoungeLamp2.sendCommand(ON);
				LoungeLamp3.sendCommand(ON);
				LoungeLamp4.sendCommand(OFF);
				LoungeLamp5.sendCommand(OFF);
				}
			}
end

rule "Change lights on STOP"
	when
		Item myKodi_stop changed to ON
	then{
		if(TVDimming.state==ON){
			LoungeLamp1.sendCommand(ON);
			LoungeLamp2.sendCommand(ON);
			LoungeLamp3.sendCommand(ON);
			LoungeLamp4.sendCommand(ON);
			LoungeLamp5.sendCommand(ON);
		}
	}
end

rule "Turn on auto dimming when using KODI"
	when
		Item HarmonyActivity changed to "Kodi"
	then{
	TVDimming.sendCommand(ON);
	}
end
8

Thanks @matt1, is this rule specific to Kodi? I have a few devices attached to the Harmony, that being a Xfinity DVR, PS4, XBox, Fire TV, etc.

What does the myKodi_control Item look like?

Thanks,

Dan

9

Kodi items are same as the examples in this link

I would highly recommend Kodi as it is by far the most configurable and automatable platform you will find as it has been around for a long time. The advantage is if you press pause to take a break from a movie and then press pause again to start the movie the lights know the movie is playing and display correctly. By watching keypresses how do u know if the last press was pausing or unpausing the movie? Another way would be to watch the audio output to change lights.