
Reverse Engineering the Logitech Harmony - zdw
https://twitter.com/foone/status/1251395931351609347
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glenharris
Hey y'all.

I wrote the client/server/embedded software for the Harmony (technically the
'EasyZapper'(!) at first). It was the original 'two guys and a laptop'
project. My mate Justin was the electrical/industrial/hardware/UI designer
(although he will blame all the shitty software UI on me...).

Happy to answer any questions.

Glen.

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acydlord
How long did you stay on the Harmony team? I was a SME with these remotes and
worked with the support team in Phoenix until they shuttered that office. I've
still got one of the original remotes and early beta models of the H900 and
the PS3 adapter in my collection.

~~~
glenharris
Logitech bought us in 2004, I think I stayed on for about another 12-18 months
or so. I would have finished up around mid-late 2005. I have a ridiculous
collection of early Harmony Remotes that I cant bear to get rid of :-)

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sethammons
That's pretty amazing. We used to have a Harmony remote like 15+ years ago.
Best remote we ever owned. Great at controlling everything, including the
original xbox for dvd viewing.

Then they went and updated. They artificially limited the number of devices a
class of remote could control. They moved more "features" into the display of
the remote which made them harder to use and reduced buttons. The quality went
down, and the the newer remotes stopped being able to accurately control all
my devices.

I now sit with 5 remotes on my couch's armrest instead of one harmony. They
had the best universal remote and they ruined it. If I were more of a hardware
guy, I'd start a competing product that added the required sensors as a dongle
to your phone.

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ALurchyBeast
Did Harmony ruin it, or did Logitech ruin Harmony?

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sethammons
It was a logitech device when I had the couple I did

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t0mbstone
This is some proper hacking. It seems like the majority of stuff on Hacker
News these days is just political crap, but this... this is good stuff.

~~~
Grazester
Zeitgeist? It also seems like IT was viewed as more fringe. Now that it's more
mainstream and part of our day to day lives it would cross over more and more
into the political; whether it be surveillance using tech or the regulating of
domestic or foreign tech companies.

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mdaniel
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1251395931351609347.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1251395931351609347.html)
is the URL I came to the comments looking for

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CawCawCaw
Somehow it looks like the bot was not responding on twitter, but the unrolled
thread was created.

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jaywalk
The shortcuts they took when developing this remote are just mind boggling! I
never would have imagined it was running a full networking stack, servers, and
Flash for the UI. Just incredible.

~~~
beatrobot
This model is more than 10 years old, I wonder if the more recent models have
the same architecture.

~~~
jaywalk
I have a more recent model (Harmony Elite) so I guess there's only one way to
find out...

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kelchm
I’ve been using the Harmony devices for years, even back before Logitech
purchased them.

The software is awful and has always been awful, but the hardware has been
pretty consistently solid.

I really wish there was a way to run a custom firmware on these devices,
particularly the Harmony Hub + Simple Remote.

~~~
glenharris
Justin could not agree with you more!

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Lammy
Foone is into such fun things, but I absolutely can’t stand how everything is
“stupid”, “the dumbest thing ever”, “what were they thinking?”, etc. It must
be exhausting to hate everything so much. It sure is exhausting to read about
it.

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HissingMachine
It's hard to see, but I think he could have cut the plastic in the charger to
let the rf blaster to function while it was connected to the charger. But it's
always nice to hack old hardware instead of looking for a shortcut.

~~~
JoshuaRedmond
They actually did[0], although admittedly it's quite a long way down the
thread.

[0] -
[https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1251483589914423296?s=19](https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1251483589914423296?s=19)

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epda
Really amazing deep dive. When mine did this I just bought a new battery. This
does seems more fun though.

