Roon Extension: Deep Harmony - rich feature set for Logitech Harmony

Adam_Goodfellow · August 24, 2019, 2:40am

That’s odd - the setting in the extension is instant - it controls how the extension interprets the button presses it receives from Harmony for Roon.

Even when I make changes in the Harmony app on my phone, once I use the sync function in the app, those changes are on the remote.

If you want to export your logs and send them over - the I’m happy to have a look through to see if a cause is revealed.

Adam_Goodfellow · August 24, 2019, 10:34am

Hi Larry, I have had a look at you logs and while all the configuration looks correct (harmony and roon), oddly I can not see any sign of remote or Roon zone activity.

Could I therefore ask that you return button config to dual reversed and activate the Roon zone via its associated harmony activity, and perform some remote presses (play/pause, fast forward, rewind etc), then resend the logs ever please.

That way I check exactly how the fast forward button is being interpreted.

Thanks

Adam

Larry_Post · August 24, 2019, 1:45pm

Thanks Adam, updated logs emailed

Adam_Goodfellow · August 24, 2019, 2:24pm

Thanks - responded via email.

Larry_Post · August 24, 2019, 8:25pm

@Adam_Goodfellow Thank you for the pointers to straighten out my setup and to get Alexa behaving!

Your efforts are much appreciated

Brett_Kerbel · August 25, 2019, 5:15pm

Hi Adam - I just updated to 2.6.0. The additions look great. Unfortunately, I still have the problem with source control enabled, selecting next track seems to run the power-on activity for my DAC. Please confirm ok to send logs your way.

Thank you,
Brett

Adam_Goodfellow · August 25, 2019, 6:08pm

Yes - send them over

Adam

Larry_Post · August 25, 2019, 7:56pm

Being able to skip to the next track with Alexa is awesome! The volume response is a good bit too slow but its good that it’s cautious vs. over shooting.

Do you know of a way to cause the Harmony app take over the hard buttons on iPhone when it’s locked? App and buttons work great for volume while the app is in the fore.

Any idea how many people have pulled or are otherwise running your extension?

Adam_Goodfellow · August 25, 2019, 10:15pm

Which volume control are you referring to? Roon controlling Harmony, or Harmony controlling Roon? It does both as required depending on what Harmony volume buttons are set to (if set to Roon control volumeup/down/mute, then they control Roon) and if you have enabled the deep harmony volume control in Roon which allows Roon to control Harmony.

As far as I know Harmony who only allow use of the iOS device volume buttons when it is the foreground active app.

As for users, actually I have no idea - I was wondering that myself the other day
I have never really attempted to promote its existence beyond this thread, so I would expect the number is quite low.

Larry_Post · August 25, 2019, 10:45pm

Harmony controlling my DAC - I’m fixed volume in Roon. I have a preamp as well but prefer the stepless DAC volume over the preamp. So the preamp stays at it’s ‘sweet spot’ volume of 74. The DAC I vary from about 50 to 100.

Volume control works normally and increases/decreases the apparent volume at a rate that I like and am accustomed to when using the Harmony remote and the Harmony app but not when asking Alexa to volume up or volume down.

The remotes allow me to click up/down one click at a time, and hold it down to scroll up or down quickly but not too quickly that I over shoot nor do I have to wait too long for the volume to change.

Alexa sends a burst of plus/minus 3 or 4 (out of 100 max) with a bit of a delay before she’ll accept another increase or decrease so I find it less useful but handy nonetheless even with the tedium.

Adam_Goodfellow · August 25, 2019, 10:53pm

OK - yes I find volume control by Alexa a bit hit and miss. It appears to send a bunch of volume pulses with a wait between each. What I tried to do ion the extension was to persuade harmony to believe the volume was being held down and the release it when it doesn’t get another update from Roon.

Both approaches have their merits and problems given how harmony API seems to behave.

You can try ‘Alexa volume up in harmony by 5’ or some other number. My amp has a motorized volume control and TBH I am not very keen on letting these systems queue up a load of commands on it - harmony app on iOS is quite bad at this for eg.

Sometime Alexa volume up/down by whatever also works if it previous context to know you are referring to harmony, for eg after an ‘alexa play harmony’.

Larry_Post · August 25, 2019, 10:58pm

I named my system ‘stereo’ in Alexa scenes so I always say ‘Alexa volume up stereo’ or ‘Alexa stereo volume up’. I believe it remembers for 30 mins

I’ve not had any problems with the app but haven’t used it much. The physical remote has never caused a runaway volume situation but I also keep the max between the DAC and preamp at a non-damaging level. I rarely go above 90dB and only for a bit.

Brett_Kerbel · August 26, 2019, 7:18pm

Thanks Adam - logs sent. hopefully this is easy to resolve. I did notice one odd thing. On the console page, the extension is showing two hubs with the same name, while there is only one hub on my network.

Thank you,
Brett

Adam_Goodfellow · August 26, 2019, 11:10pm

Thanks - got them.

The cause is that when changing from the old protocol to the new one, it seems harmony returns a different unique id for the hub. The main software is fine with this, it will use the new ID.

However, two entries remain in the configuration (with old id and new id) with the old being inert. Because the button list view in the console only looks at the configuration and not running state - it sees both entries.

Will fix in a future update.

As for the source control issue - still looking into that.

Jense · August 27, 2019, 3:44pm

Hello Adam
I have a problem with the new version 2.6.
Deep Harmony crashes after the night.
Roon can not find the extension anymore and I have to restart the Docker Imgage on the Rasberry Pi. After the restart everything goes again.

There were never any problems with the old version.

Adam_Goodfellow · August 27, 2019, 4:45pm

Hi, Jense,

Could you please send me logs from the extension. Click on the blue extension link in settings as shown here Roon Extension: Deep Harmony - rich feature set for Logitech Harmony

Then click on download logs and email them to me (I’ll PM you my email address).

Thanks

Adam

Jense · August 27, 2019, 4:50pm

Logs send. Thanks Adam for great work

hammer · September 1, 2019, 2:22pm

Hi, was wondering if my setup got corrupted…previously, when I start to play to a zone linked to an harmony activity, Harmony will “turn on” that activity (eg., power on my preamp etc). However, it does not seem to do that anymore after the recent updates to Deep Harmony. And I can’t seem to find the right settings to do this. Also, in the prior version, There was a power on/off button in Roon to turn off the activity…that also is now missing. Can someone point me to the right settings?

Also, Thank you for an awesome extension!

Adam_Goodfellow · September 1, 2019, 2:31pm

If upgrading from version prior to 2.5, then I have recently become aware of an issue that could possibly explain this.

I suggest proceed as follows for each of the zones you use with Harmony:

Open up the device setup in Roon.
Take a note of any settings you have changed, MQA mode, etc
Click on load defaults (this will also clear any source and volume controls - which is the reason for doing this)
Re-apply any settings like MQA behavior etc
Re-add the volume and source controls.
Click save.

The reason is because when moving from the old XMPP harmony protocol to their web socket protocol, it turns out the device Id returned is different which can impact the setup of source and volume controls.

Hope this helps,

Adam

Astr0b0y · September 2, 2019, 12:38am

I had this issue too, recently. I tried what Adam suggested but still no luck. I found I had to remove the Roku device from MyHarmony and re-add to get it all back and working.