I'm hoping to be able to have IR remote capabilities for different lighting themes in my theater area using the Harmony 720 and Lutron dimmer switchs (Spacer)

Can the 720, 6 hard buttons in the colour screen area be reprogrammed from what they presently say to something else? ie. I'd like to reprogram the "watch VCR" button to say "LIGHTS"

Once i press the LIGHT button, i'd like to have come up on the screen my different theme options;

Theme 1 - Games
Theme 2 - Movies
Theme 3 - Intermission
Theme 4 - Office

If the answer is NO, is there another way to do this? Maybe have the remote "learn" the different themes on 4 different buttons.???

There must be people out there that want to do this...but how?

Thank you for your help!

You add your Lutron controller as a device, then you include that device in all of your activities. Then you can add the different theme commands (assuming they're one IR command) to any buttons you want. If you just want to access the lighting commands you press Device, then pick the light controller and your LCD will show the 4 commands (and you can map them to hard buttons 1-4). Press Device twice and you're back to activity mode.

You can also send lighting commands when you start or leave an activity.

sounds like everything will work, but since i'm new to these remotes, will i be able to do the following.....

Press 1 button and
TV turns on
TV turns to dvd mode
Receiver turns on
Receiver turns to dvd mode
dvd player turns on
dvd player plays
Lights go to theme 1
?

How long would all of this take....does it happen all at once or one piece after another so it could take maybe 10 - 15 seconds? This is assuming that everything is OFF but what happens if a unit is already on, say the TV? Will it stay on and just change to dvd mode?


For the money ($200 CDN) is there a better remote out there? I'm curious as to why this forum has so little focus on the Harmony and so much on the Philips, Sony and the Universal Remote...and Harmony kind of takes a back seat?

Thanks

What you described is EXACTLY what happens when you select an activity. It automatically turns on devices (if they're off) and selects the right input on every device if necessary, then runs additional commands if you specify them. The best part of the harmony is that it will only issue commands for power and input selection if it needs to. e.g. if your TV has a power toggle, the first time you select an activity it will send the power toggle command. After that it knows the TV is on and won't resend the power toggle (because that would turn the TV off). Similarly if you have a list of inputs that you cycle through the harmony keeps track of which one you're on and dynamically figures out how many commands are needed to get to the next input. Normal macros can't do this.

When I hit watch a DVD I use my TV, DVD player, receiver and scene control just as you described. It only takes 4-5 seconds. Of course that depends on your equipment and the delays are adjustable to make sure everything works correctly.