Logitech Harmony support

I created the Xbox 360 profile in OSMC - what do you want to know about it ? I created it using irrecord on a Pi 2 using an actual xbox 360 remote. (Not a harmony profile)

Yes you can pair input devices like keyboards to a Vero4k. So if your other device can emulate a bluetooth keyboard it should work.

Thx for the info on the XBox 360 profile.

Regarding the Bluetooth keyboard device, I think that is what the Logitech Hub uses.
Iā€™ll check it out as soon as itā€™s there and I find some time.

FYI - I have configure my Harmony elite / Hub to run with kodi, and it works ā€¦
I did put it into a new thread. Eventually we could all put our configurations into that Thread, or have a SubForum for that ā€¦

I have a harmony hub and Vero 4k and you have choices. The harmony hub presents itself as a Bluetooth keyboard and you can pair the Vero 4k (or Raspberry pi with Bluetooth) and use it that way. It works well, but I did tend to find that it took a while to wake up if not used for a long time.

The harmony hub is also an IR blaster and has a profile for an Xbox 360 remote. This also works well. I tend to use the Kodi key mapper app to map keys like context menu after that.

Using the advice here I just set up my Philips Pronto TSU9400 with a page that uses the MS MCE remote RC5 commands and it works perfectly.

The skip forward and back work a bit different, they skip whole movies/tv episodes but I now have multi-step FF and rewind that works, so no biggie.

EDIT: Ok so not quit right.

The MCE green button takes me to Music, I would like it to be the Home key.
The Menu button acts like the back key. I would like the Menu key mapped to the ā€˜cā€™ context menu.

How do I do this?

The quickest way would be to use the Keymap editor addon to remap the keys functionality

Hi Sam, I installed the Keymap editor addon and got it sorted quick smart. Thanks.

I canā€™t understand why using the vero with a harmony remote is such a hard thing for most people.

I use a Harmony 1100 Advcanced and it is really an old model so i think from 2010 or 2011

all iā€™ve done is using the harmony app for the remote and added a device Media Center PC, then if i can remember i used OSMC as brand and typed in Vero as model, not sure if vero4k is now also listed as a model, i never changed it coz it works with the old vero selected.

i attached you the pic (its in german) but i think it should be clear what kind of device i added.

i never messed around with key editor or something else, it just worked out of the box.

And for the functions they didnā€™t work i configured the buttons manually but all of them are chooseable, see pic 2. So iā€™m pretty sure this should also work with actual models and actual harmony software to configure them

I hope this is helpful for some of you :slight_smile:

After reading up quite a bit here I summarized what were the options that people were using, and decided that the MCE Keyboard protocol would be the most flexible also easiest, as proposed here by pratikgr, since no remote mapping would be needed, as mce-kbd is supposed to be supported out of the box in parallel to the RC5/6 protocols.

After mapping the HarmonyOne accordingly, I found out that mce_kbd events are not available in OSMC out of the box. Installed evtest and saw this:

root@Vero4K:~# evtest
No device specified, trying to scan all of /dev/input/event*
Available devices:
/dev/input/event0: gpio_keypad
/dev/input/event1: cec_input
/dev/input/event2: OSMC Remote Controller USB Keyboard Mouse
/dev/input/event3: OSMC Remote Controller USB Keyboard Mouse
/dev/input/event4: meson-ir
/dev/input/event5: lircd
/dev/input/event6: eventlircd

I am still convinced that - apart from a Harmony Hub with BT - the MCE Keyboard mapping would be the most flexible and easiest solution for everyone with an IR Harmony remote control. It could settle the confusion once and for all.

How can I configure an mce_kbd event device on OSMC and create the proper keymaps?

It would be great if OSMC came with an mce_kbd device out of the box and the keymaps would already also incorporate mce_kbd, as described in this thread: MCE Keyboard input not detected - General Support - LibreELEC Forum

To the benefit of the everyone I attach my notes for the methods people used here to get their IR Harmony connected:

Device type: Media Center PC

Option 1: Like the included remote. Misses a lot of Kodi function keys. Very basic.
Harmony One Profile:
Vendor: OSMC
Product: "Vero 4kā€
Vero Lirc Profile: osmc-remote-lird

Option 2:
Harmony One Profile:
Vendor: Microsoft
Product: ā€œMCE Keyboardā€
Vero Lirc Profile: any, MCE keyboard should work out of the box without any profile - Note: this is not the case currently, you need to enable mce_kbd events:

sudo ir-keytable  -p lirc -p rc-6 -p mce_kbd

Additional needed key mappings on the Harmony Keys:
Guide: E
Exit: Esc
Back: Backspace
Manu: C
E: W (toggle watched state)

Option 3:
Harmony One Profile:
Vendor: Microsoft
Product: ā€œMCE-1039ā€
Vero Lirc Profile: rc6-mce-lircd

Option 4: People report this as ā€œspotty"
Harmony One Profile:
Vendor: Microsoft
Product: ā€œXbox 360ā€
Vero Lirc Profile: xbox360-lircd

A very important point with the Microsoft remote solutions (MCE RC6, MCE kbd, and XBOX 360) is to use the external IR receiver. None of this works good enough with the internal receiver on my box!

I think you can do this with ir-keytable

Yes, this is what I just tried, based on these articles:

https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread/12348-mce-keyboard-input-not-detected/

https://blogging.dragon.org.uk/using-ir-keytable-with-mythtv/

apt-get update
apt-get install evtest
evtest

if no mce_kbd is found, need to enable the protocol

apt-get install ir-keytable

ir-keytable

Found /sys/class/rc/rc0/ (/dev/input/event4) with:
Driver meson-ir, table rc-empty
Supported protocols: lirc rc-5 rc-5-sz jvc sony nec sanyo mce_kbd rc-6 sharp xmp
Enabled protocols: lirc
Name: meson-ir
bus: 25, vendor/product: 0000:0000, version: 0x0000
Repeat delay = 500 ms, repeat period = 125 ms

ir-keytable  -p lirc -p rc-6 -p mce_kbd

ir-keytable
Found /sys/class/rc/rc0/ (/dev/input/event4) with:
Driver meson-ir, table rc-empty
Supported protocols: lirc rc-5 rc-5-sz jvc sony nec sanyo mce_kbd rc-6 sharp xmp
Enabled protocols: lirc mce_kbd
Name: meson-ir
bus: 25, vendor/product: 0000:0000, version: 0x0000
Repeat delay = 500 ms, repeat period = 125 ms

cp /lib/udev/rc_keymaps/rc6_mce /etc/rc_keymaps/rc6_mce_plus_kbd

edit first line in /etc/ā€¦ by appending ā€œ,mce_kbd", yielding:

# table rc6_mce, type: RC6,mce_kbd

insert in in /etc/rc_maps.cfg:

*       rc-rc6-mce              rc6_mce_plus_kbd

and comment out the old rc-rc6-mce line, yielding:

#*      rc-rc6-mce               rc6_mce
*       rc-rc6-mce              rc6_mce_plus_kbd

adjust repeat rate:

ir-keytable -D 750 -P 250

The results at first were disappointing. Some keys did work, with repeat (e.g. up, right), many did not at all.
Also the enabling of mce_kbd does not survive a reboot, which is what the two file changes were made for above. I donā€™t really understand what Iā€™m doing here, I am basically pasting together stuff from the articles above.

What made the difference was not to use the internal IR receiver, but the external one!
actually then all Microsoft RC6 / Keyboard methods work (both MCE kbd and MCE RC6, and XBOX 360)!

To be honest, Sam, I would appreciate it if you could get mce_kbd activated in OSMC out of the box. It seems just right, to also have mce_kbd event available.

Iā€™ve replied to your feedback request.
While I am glad this is working for you ā€” I donā€™t think itā€™s the best option for the majority of users.

Do you mind shedding some light on your rationale why you think its not the best for all? BTW, I am not saying it is the best and only solution. I am just saying it is very easy for the Harmony users, and also only a small change for you on OSMC.

Donā€™t get me wrong, if you think you canā€™t, donā€™t want, or wonā€™t do it, I will just do it myself in the startup scripts, no worries. This modification is simple enough, would probably cost you an 1-3h incl. testing.

I am just thinking it would be good for a whole lot more users if you would put it in OSMC out of the box.

Our goal is to utilise eventlircd as a uinput aggregator and then pump this through to expose everything as an LIRC socket. This means that everything is configurable.

Using anything but IR bridge with ir-keytable defers remote decoding to the kernel. This requires custom keymaps (and sometimes even custom kernels) to decode keys correctly; and greatly reduces configurability.

Thatā€™s not the problem.

The likelihood of extreme regression for other users would be rife. This is why other distributions (LE) havenā€™t made this a default out of the box.

It sounds more like we need a de-facto Harmony profile that is performant and responsive with the current environment.

Iā€™ll continue to monitor this, but Iā€™d like to see further applications.

Sam

If you are really waiting for more proof than you can see in the harmony threads, I cannot imagine when you will have enough proof to take action. No worries. That means for me that I will go ahead and put the command in the startup scripts to have the MCE KBD solution now.

Iā€™m always happy to solicit advice.

@Smurphy: youā€™re a Harmony guy here.
How are you running things these days?

Putting something in rc.local will do the trick in the interim; and weā€™d prefer someone like you with the knowledge to do so to act on that. Currently our remote scheme is focused on people with less customisation knowledge

Cheers

Sam

Running with an Harmony Elite, without any issues, but is because it is through bluetooth I guess :thinking:

Same here, using the following:

Vendor: Microsoft
Product: Kodi

All Kodi keys available, I canā€™t see any need to mess with files. I use Bluetooth but the above should would the same with IR

I just configured it as a Windows device, and use the default keys of the remote. Nothing else.
But I am using the Bluetooth connection (Much more responsive, even though my girls moan about the fact that when the power up the devices, they canā€™t use Kodi straight away - always takes 2 seconds until the bluetooth connectivity is there :slight_smile: ). Teaches them to be patient, which is a good thing! :smiley: