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The Johnnynine Weblog - How to fix slow response on Logitech Harmony 880 Remote Control with Tivo
A weblog by Johnny Hughes
 
 Monday, July 18, 2005

First off let me tell you how much I love this remote control. I got rid of my 5 remote controls and now just use the Logitech Harmony 880 Remote Control. It's a bit pricey but considering my wife can now use the entertainment system, it's well worth it!

Now back to the Tivo situation. After first setting up the remote to work with tivo I noticed that the quick button response/performance that i was used to from the tivo remote was now slow with the harmony remote. After doing some digging around I found 2 settings that make the remote work just as well as the tivo remote...

1. Setting the Inter-Key Delay to 0
First set the Inter-Key Delay to 0. If this causes problems you can set it a bit higher, but 0 works for me. I also have Inter-Device Delay set to 500, but this is not important for what we are trying to do here. So to change this setting, which defaults to 500, from the Harmony Home Page select the 'More Options' link next to the Tivo device (not the tivo activity). The Device Options page should appear, from which you should select 'Adjust the Delays (speed settings)'. In the Inter-key Delay box, enter 0 and click Next, then click Next again from the next page.

2. Setting command repeat count to 0
Secondly and lastly set the command repeat count to 0. So to change this setting, which defaults to 3, from the Harmony Home Page select the 'Troubleshoot' link next to the Tivo device (not the tivo activity). The Adjusting Setup:Device Problems page should appear, from which you should select 'Show me more problems' radio button and then click Next. On the next page, choose 'TIVO doesn't appear to receive every command correctly.' and click Next. On the next page select 'The device responds too much to some commands (for example, volume up increases the volume too quickly).' and click Next. A list of numbers 0 to 5 will appear. This is the number of times the remote will send a command to Tivo which defaults to 3. Set this to 0 which works fine for me. If you have problems with this try increasing it to 1.

And that's it. Once I changed these settings, my tivo responded to my harmony 880 remote as quickly as it did to my tivo remote.

A couple more little tricks

To facilitate quicker fast forward and rewinds, I mapped the up arrow and down arrow respectively.  I just found it a little difficult to quickly locate the fast forward/rewind and play buttons.

Since I also have a ‘Tivo Stereo’ activity, I added a custom button to lower the volume on the tivo.  This also works with other activities like DVD.  I tried just muting the tv, but the tv leave the word ‘MUTE’ on the screen.

Thank you Harmony for providing my best gadget purchase in quite some time.

Monday, July 18, 2005 7:35:33 AM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)  #    Comments [7]   Fixes | Technical  | 
Friday, June 16, 2006 11:45:02 PM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
hey thanks a load man i was having a similar problem with my cable tv in australia. cheers!
vee
Saturday, June 17, 2006 6:15:21 PM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
Thanks for describing the exact steps to go through. The web interface is really hard to navigate for things like this.
Saturday, November 11, 2006 6:50:13 AM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
You are more than welcome.
Sunday, February 11, 2007 3:23:15 PM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
Thanks for this! I just bought a harmony remote so my wife could control the TV, Tivo, Xbox 360, etc. She loves it but gripes that it's now as fast as the Tivo.

Now she has one less gripe.
Thursday, March 08, 2007 4:09:00 PM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
What the others have said - thanks! I bought a 520 yesterday and now my set-up is complete with this fix. ;)
Matt
Friday, March 30, 2007 10:47:14 PM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
Great fix - before it was very frustrating to use the Harmony to control the TiVo, now my set up is near perfect.
Myles
Sunday, January 06, 2008 12:59:33 AM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
thanks a lot! fixed my 520 using your settings!
brandon
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