Indigo Domotics

Good news! That is a step in the right direction.

Håvard

I read this yesterday and am really interested in this.

Spent a lot of time at looking at the options for remotes that can and cannot be integrated with Indigo. My needs were simple - use my existing remotes to work an IR blaster for AV devices that are hidden behind a unit. (I just don't need to see the AV and wires). Plus, I would have like to be able to use an IR device in the room to send commands to the IR blaster via Indigo. You would think that would be easy, seeing as IR is old school tech, but it would have involved rigging up multiple devices and software to talk to Indigo.

The Harmony hub integrated with Indigo sounds so much better, and I get a universal remote as well. This sounds like a much easier sell to the significant other.

Certainly looking at this with great interest.

Well I can give a short status on how I am using the harmony in my indigo setup.

The Vera controller has a very good plugin for the harmony. I have set up several scenes on the Vera, and I am controlling these from the Vera plugin that is supplied with Indigo. The response is as good as instant. And I use the denon plugin to monitor state of the receiver. The only issue I have is that sometimes the Vera and Indigo gets out of sync or something. And I have to restart the plugin or the vera to get it to work again. This is the only downside.
I started to look at making a plugin for this my self, but I just don't know how to start. I think this is a bit difficult as a first plugin.

Håvard

I also read this yesterday and I can't wait to get a plugin using this API!

Is there anyone out there that could build a plugin?
I really would contribute with a donation of some $$$, no much but if we all do contribute, it might motivate someone.
Maby a kickstarter or indiegogo to start the collection.
Anyone with the knowledge or even Indigo might find this interesting.

Why do I want this plugin so badly??

#1 I want a hard button remote! My wife will never use a touch device to control the AV gear and it's even harder for my 3 year toddler (even if he masters the iPad and iPhone, he likes to feel the buttons, I have tried with the harmony app on my phone).

2# Keep it simple and supported, I recently migrated from Vera Light to Indigo. I still have my Vere here and have thought about connecting to it and use the harmony plugin to Vera like some other have done. The plugin built in Vera is what I have read a very home build solution and not the most stable and not supported by Logitech Harmony.

#3 Protect my investment in harmony smart hub, I have looked at Roomie remote and I am impressed, but I still miss the possibility of a hard button remote.

Looks interesting

I currently have a Harmony 900 remote and was looking to upgrade it but not without an API. So I am currently using the Harmony 900 and (mainly) Indigo Touch with an ITach blaster which is actually more flexible than the Harmony. Hopefully Indigo Touch 2.0 will make it even better.

I had a look at the Harmony API website which has the following statement:

If your company creates devices or services that could benefit from Harmony API integration, request access below. Existing participants may sign in to the developer portal.

This implies to me that it has to be a company rather than individual developer requesting access?

I could have a look at it (no promises) but I think it will need Indigodomo to request the access?

I will also have to update my harmony

Is anyone at IndigoDomo willing to request this access and make this a baked-in feature of Indigo? I think A LOT of users would benefit from this.

It sounds like haavarda is already working on a plugin. If he cannot get access to the API directly, then we will work with him and Harmony to get try to get him access.

Hi!

For me it sounds more like Håvard is gone give it a try, byt he has never done this before

"I started to look at making a plugin for this myself, but I just don't know how to start. I think this is a bit difficult as a first plugin.

Håvard"

I could give the same statement; I work as an IT professional but don't know much about programing. I made my first apple script last week and will keep on learning, I have made a lot of Windows batch script at work, but that will not help much now.

I would be great if you (Indigo) could sign up to get the API/Instruction/available commands. What I have read it sounds more like it's a company that has to create the login.
I will try my best making apple scripts to solve my problems and integration with Harmony and Indigo and will gladly share my code.

I have given up on making the plugging myself. I just don't know enough about programming. All the pieces are already there (GitHub), so it is about stacking it together as a plugin.

I am using the GitHub files through a Vera version of the plugin and that is working good. But it would be best to run it on the indigo server.

Håvard

CntryDoe wrote:

I took a slightly different approach.

HarmonyPY has been working for me... I found it through http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Harmony-H ... 607/page/4 (Post # 37 to be precise). I'm hoping someone that knows how to create a plugin can package it as an indigo plugin.

As for now, I have it polling my Harmony Hub and putting the current activity into a variable via shell script.

Hi,
Can you describe a how you managed to get this to work? How did you set it up, and how are you running the commands?

Håvard

I am trying to get the Python module that is available from github to run on my server.
I am following this method:

Code: Select all

Here's what I did:
https://github.com/rkitover/pyharmony
1. downloaded the pyharmony module from the link above
2. got the following pre-requisite modules and put them all into the same folder. Mine is Users/mediacenter/Scripts
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/requests/2.3.0
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/sleekxmpp/1.2.5
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/argparse/1.2.1
3. added my directory to Python by opening terminal and typing in
PYTHONPATH="/Users/mediacenter/Scripts:$PYTHONPATH"
 

export PYTHONPATH
4. Finally I ran the following ( of course you'll need to change the email, password, IP address and activity name)
"PYTHONPATH="." harmony --email me@whatever.com --password mypassword     --harmony_ip 192.168.1.55 start_activity "activity name”'

The problem is that when I try to set the PYTHONPATH in terminal I get no response. It only shifts to a new line. I also dont understand how I can run the command described in 4.
Annyone that can see what I am doing wrong?

Håvard

I had an action group set to run a shell script harmony.sh with the following text

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
cd /path to scripts/
PYTHONPATH="." python harmony --email your emailaddress --password yourpassword --harmony_ip harmonyip start_activity 'Watch TV'

or something like that. I have recently updated the OS on my indigo server machine and the harmony scripts stopped working. there is almost certainly better ways of doing it.

Colin

I have taken the plunge, well first small step anyway : I have ordered a Harmony Ultimate Remote which should be delivered tomorrow

I have a multiplicity of devices to control: TV, AV Receiver, Squeezebox, SageTV, AppleTV, Roku3 and Amazon FireTV - I can see myself spending a bit of time to get this all configured

I am wondering what functions an Indigo Harmony Plugin would be required to do i.e. what are the use cases for the plugin?

I guess the most important is to be able to start activities. Watch TV, Use AppleTV etc... In addition it is nice to be able to poll the hub to see what activity is currently active.

Håvard

autolog wrote:

I have taken the plunge, well first small step anyway : I have ordered a Harmony Ultimate Remote which should be delivered tomorrow

I have a multiplicity of devices to control: TV, AV Receiver, Squeezebox, SageTV, AppleTV, Roku3 and Amazon FireTV - I can see myself spending a bit of time to get this all configured

I am wondering what functions an Indigo Harmony Plugin would be required to do i.e. what are the use cases for the plugin?

Excellent news by the way!

Håvard