Can anyone explain why 6 modes is a good idea? I have only been using my Harmony for a few days, but selecting modes in my Tivo Television activity is already becoming tiresome. You watch in Play mode. When the program is over you switch to navigate mode (one press of mode) to go into menus and delete the watched program. Still in navigate mode, you select another program to watch. Then you press mode 5(!) times to get back to play mode. If you forget to make the mode change, when the ads come on you press what you think is FF only to be disappointed.

Here is my preliminary conclusion. There has to be so many modes because Harmony have eliminated too many physical buttons. Having fewer buttons than my previous universals is a good thing - but has Harmony gone too far?

If they had a few more buttons - for example, if they had two "joy stick" circles of five buttons instead of one circle, we would be able to watch Tivo all night long without having to change modes once. One circle would be navigation and one circle would be play mode. This would also allow the buttons to be more appropriately labelled. When you are in play mode, it is reasonable to press a button with a "play" symbol on it when you want to play. But in navigate mode the button means "select" but is still labelled "play".

I would love someone to explain to me that I am wrong and just need to get used to the new method of operation. Or maybe that I am missing something about how to use this thing. I love some of the concepts and I really want it to work. But at the moment, I can't imagine teaching my wife to use it - even for the normal Tivo operation (watch several Tivo shows in a row). And I certainly can't imagine teaching her how to resync it if something goes wrong. I predict that the Tivo remote will be back in her hand the minute I leave the room.

So, here is my conclusion - please argue with it and show me where I am wrong.

1. Harmony has too few buttons and too many modes. By doubling the number of buttons, they would still be simpler than the typical universal remote, but they could combine play and navigate mode and thus be much easier to operate in the most common uses (like watching a string of Tivo shows or watching a DVD - both cases where you want to mix play and navigate functions without having to keep changing modes.

2. The mode change button is inadequate. A more direct method of changing modes is needed. At least we should be able to go forwards and backwards through the list of modes. Then we could move from play mode to navigate mode and back in one action instead of one press to go from play to navigate and 5 presses to go from navigate to play. This bidirectional ability could be acheived with a rocker switch or with a second wheel.

Thanks in advance for showing me the errors of my analysis - or at least for agreeing with some of my frustrations.

Keith

I quite agree with you and wrote a review to that effect. Basically the device needs to have as many
buttons as is the most you normally use on any of
your remote controls. If it has any less, then
you will be doing modes.

In fact, the a clone of the Tivo remote would be
an excellent starting point.

I also realised that I never read remote controls.
If you do have to read one, then it is because it
has too many buttons, or the one you want is too
hard to find by touch. The more this device makes
you read it, the more annoying it gets.

They have the concept right, but the execution is
poor. If the programming APIs were released, then
at least the programmers amongst us would have a
fighting chance of trying to make the device more
usable.

If they don't, someone else will copy the idea,
but do it well.

Roger

Keith,

I agree with you that the Tivo poses a challenge for most remotes due to the heavy use of menus. My previous remote had a joystick, which worked very nicely for the Tivo. That being said, I found that the Harmony worked very well once I tweaked a few things:

I don't use the "All Channels" mode, I just use "Favorite Channels". I also don't use the TV listings. Both of these were check/uncheck options in the setup. This leaves me with 4 modes (Nav, Play, Control, Fav Channels). I then changed the button function for the "Stop" button (in Play, Control and Fav modes) to bring up the Tivo Menu and to switch to Nav mode.

Now when you watch a show and hit "Stop", you get the Tivo menu and the remote is in Nav mode, so you can work the menus. After you start watching a new show, you have to hit the Mode Button once, so that the FF and REW keys work correctly. That's it. No problem explaining this to the family, and it works so well that I could even retire my teenage daughter's purple Tivo remote!

I got the info for the change button function from folks on this board as well as from Harmony tech support, and I think I posted it a while back. If you have questions, just drop me a note. I hope this helps.

David

I think you got it right. If Harmony doesn't evolve quickly, someone will copy their good stuff and correct the other problems.

I think I will wait for Harmony 2 or for another company to take this idea and polish it - so, next week, mine will be going back.

If you go to the Harmonyremotes forum on Yahoo, you will find a post from Jason B Wright on the subject of Harmony 2. He also uploaded some photos of the device he would like to see (look in the photos section of the forum). He agrees that more buttons are needed and has proposed a layout for those buttons that would be great for Tivo.

Axel

Thanks for the ideas. I will try them. They will certainly make Tivo operation much better.

But I still have a question for you. Are you saying that you think that Harmony has got the number of physical button right? If they asked you to design the perfect Harmony 2 for a Tivo user would you stick with one pad of buttons or would you prefer two sets?

Fundamentally, your fixes are making it more palatable (even automatic) to change modes while in a watch-several-programs Tivo session. My point is that I don't think it is intuitive to have mode changes in such a session. Wouldn't it be better if we had a few more buttons and could go through such a session without changing modes at all? Then there would be almost no chance of being in the wrong mode.

Another way to look at it is that there are certain times when it is natural to think of changing modes. When you change from Tivo to DVD you would expect to go through a change and a remapping of buttons. When you go from Tivo to live TV, its an obvious change of "mode". But I think of watching Tivo as a single activity - even if I watch several shows, use the guide and schedule several shows for recording. It is possible to do all these things without mode changes with a simple and elegant remote control - the Tivo original remote. If the Tivo remote had only one cluster of buttons it would have to have two modes, and I suggest it would not be as universally liked as it has been.

If you go to the Harmonyremotes forum on Yahoo, you will find a post from Jason B Wright on the subject of Harmony 2. He also uploaded some photos of the button changes he would like to see (look in the photos section of the forum). He agrees that more buttons are needed and has proposed a layout for those buttons that would be great for Tivo.

I'll let you know if your suggestions make me change my mind on giving up on Harmony.

Thanks for your help, Keith

Keith, I agree with your thoughts for the most part. On your issue #2, I suggested a while back what I thought would be a great work around for the multiple Mode button presses. It would be a type of toggle between the modes. They have yet to implement it though...

In Navigate Mode: Press Mode button = Play Mode
In Play Mode: Press Mode button = Navigate Mode

To avoid just getting stuck between the two modes, which would happen if they just toggled back and forth...if any other button has been pressed in either mode the above will happen, but if no buttons are pressed after the Mode button, when the Mode button is pressed again, it will toggle through all the other options for that device....seamless for the user, and much fewer button presses to get to the most often used Play and Navigate
modes.

This way it's very intuitive since it's pretty much how it works now, but the two functions that are used the most are immediately what each will go to when the side button is pressed in either mode....

Keith,

My previous remote was a HTM MX-1000, which has a joystick as well as transport keys, with the joystick acting as the second set of buttons. I really liked the joystick for navigating the Tivo menus, even better than the original Tivo remote. If I could change the Harmony, I would add a joystick in place of the "Play" button. For the Tivo, I would set the joystick to be the "Navigation" mode and use the transport keys for the play mode. This would not change the size of the remote (which I like) or affect the simplicity of using it.

But if I had to place a value on this change, it probably would not be that much, since I really like the Harmony as it is. (I would trade the old one + $50 for the joystick, but I would not buy a $200 new one just for this). The one mode click that I have to do when I use the Tivo quickly became a habit and I don't even think about it anymore. I never used the Thumbs up/down or most of the other buttons that much, so I don't miss them (plus I still have them through the wheel).

The Harmony just really works for my family. With the MX-1000, I put away all of the other remotes, and my family would dig them back out because they could not use the "Universal" remote. So I ended up with one more remote on the coffee table! With the Harmony, the other remotes stayed in the closet, I don't have to write up any more instruction sheets, and I don't get any "Why won't it play..." calls at work.

I hope some of the Tivo tweaks will work for you!