Using a Logitech Harmony Remote

Our IR receiver works with LIRC and is able to receive the signal from almost any remote, if configured properly.

Many of our customers who bought the receiver want to do so with a XBMC distribution, and a Logitech Harmony remote. This can get a little confusing because you are trying to configure a universal remote with a universal IR receiver. This tutorial aims at guiding those users to an easy and quick setup.

Configuring the remote

In the Logitech configuration software, you will have to tell the remote how to talk to your Raspberry Pi XBMC. No matter what distribution you are using, the simplest setup is to tell the Logitech software that it will be talking to a Windows Media Center. Media Center remotes are also sometimes called RC6 or eHome remotes.

Configuring Lirc

No matter what flavor of Linux you use on your Raspberry Pi, you will use Lirc to translate IR commands into actions. Some distributions do make it easier than others however. Lirc comes standard with many distributions, but if necessary, can easily be installed with apt-get. This tutorial shows how to install and setup Lirc specifically with a Media Center remote, should you ever need to.

Raspbmc

On Raspbmc, no configuration is necessary: the Windows Media Center remotes are recognized out of the box, so if you configured your Harmony remote as a Media Center remote, you are already all set.

Openelec

Openelec, like Raspbmc, recognizes Media Center remotes out of the box. See this guide for details if you encounter any difficulties.

Xbian

On Xbian, you can refer to this tutorial to configure your remote. As this page is being written Xbian does not recognize Media Center remotes out of the box.

Rasplex

RasPlex recognizes Media Center remotes out of the box, like Raspbmc and Openelec. RasPlex being based on Openelec, troubleshooting and manual tweaking can be done using the same set of instructions that would work on Openelec.

Original author: Fabien Royer, nwazet.com