The trade-off for such simple compilation and installation is that it requires an extra step or two to run. Compilation requires a simple make and make install, which will build and install a single executable to /usr/bin/harmony. The only major prerequisite is libusb, which is a standard part of most modern distributions. Support will come eventually, he says, but it is not stable yet. The latest release is 0.11, and it supports all Harmony models up through the 880/885.Īccording to Dibowitz, the two presently unsupported models - 890/8 - use TCP-over-USB for communication, rather than USB HID like the rest of the product line. Installation and useįrom the project’s Web site you can download the GPLv3 code in source form. Together they whipped it into shape, and with Timmerman coding on Windows and Dibowitz on Debian, it was cross-platform, too. He offered Dibowitz his code for communicating with the remotes. Timmerman had already reverse-engineered much of the Harmony remote’s communications in the process of planning to build a proprietary application for custom programming. Dibowitz wasn’t interested in the money, but one of the donors - Paul Cutler - put him in touch with Kevin Timmerman. One was to a cash bounty publicly offered by Banshee developer Aaron Bockover. Dibowitz’s initial post drew tremendous traffic, and the feedback included several email messages directing him toward others who had tackled the same task. Out of frustration, he blogged about the experience, a decision that, through a chain of connections, eventually enabled him to link up with someone who could provide answers. I replied and explained I wasn’t asking for Linux support, I was doing the Linux support *for* them … but they said they couldn’t release the information I wanted.” I sent another ticket, and got a “we don’t support Linux” response. He spent about a month trying to get someone from the Harmony team to contact me, then gave up. “My first ticket to support miraculously got forwarded to a developer, but not on the Harmony team. Initial progress was slow, so he wrote to Logitech for help. He started with USB dumps captured on a Windows machine. Writing a Linux driver for the remote fit both needs perfectly. Already familiar enough with the kernel USB subsystem to make contributions, he had been on the lookout for a more ambitious hacking project for a while. Harmony on Linux: Pass the wordĭibowitz bought a Harmony 880 remote last year after upgrading his home theater system, but eventually got annoyed at having to switch over to his Mac every time he needed to adjust the remote’s configuration. All of these advanced features are configured through a GUI application that accesses Logitech’s remote database of home theater devices and uploads your settings to the remote over a USB cable. Remotes from the Harmony line feature fully programmable buttons, an infrared (IR) receiver that can learn commands from other remotes, LCD screens (some in color) with reprogrammable labels, and user-defined macros with which you can script multiple-command sequences involving multiple devices. That wasn’t enough for Phil Dibowitz, though - he set out to build his own Linux support. Logitech’s Harmony series of programmable universal remote controls ship with Windows and Mac OS X configuration programs.
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