Shiny Hacks: Reorder Activities On A Logitech Harmony Remote

Monday, September 13, 2010

Reorder Activities On A Logitech Harmony Remote

Part of the Harmony Remote FAQ:
9. Is there a way to reorder devices and/or activities?

For remotes that have physical buttons for activities, you are not able to reorder the activities listed under the "More Activities" option.

Logitech support states that the Harmony 600, 650 and 700 (and possibly other Harmony remote controls) do not have the native ability to 'Reorder Activities'. This means that if the remote chose to place your favourite 'Activity' on the 4th page, you would have to scroll there every time you wanted to access that 'Activity'. This ordering feature is missing on the recent versions of the desktop software (7.7.0), despite the fact that previous versions of the software supported this. This workaround functions by accessing an older web version of the software (7.3.0) which is still works on newer remotes, although not in the most user intuitive way.

Reordering Activities Hack For Harmony 650

Step 1) Login to the following website: http://members.harmonyremote.com/. If you have been using your Harmony desktop software, this will have all of your settings stored here.

Step 2) Click 'More Options' and then make a note of the order of 'Activities' on the screen.

Step 3) Make a note of the order of 'Activities' on the remote.

Step 4) Click 'Re-order Activities'
The 'Activities' displayed on the website are not in the order that they will appear on the remote. You will have to reorder them so that they appear in the right order on your remote.

The remote has an order:
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

However it will interpret your list like this:
(1, 4, 5, 6, 3, 2)

You will need to exploit this by placing whatever activity you want in order 2, to be placed in order 4 in the web software.

Step 5) Click 'Update Remote'
This will ask you to follow some instructions to download two files so that your Harmony Desktop software can load your new settings. You will need to follow standard Harmony procedure and plug in your remote until the process is completed.

This should correctly reorder your remote. I have gotten this to successfully work with my Harmony 650.

Despite PlayStation 3 activity being 4th in the list, it is displayed as being 2nd on the remote.

Comments (66)

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+3 Vote up Vote down

Vlado · 753 weeks ago

Man, this definitely helped, while was going crazy with my 650.

There is one more part of the puzzle though: Whichever activity you assign to the hard buttons it will end up on the last pages no matter what! So 'Watch a Movie' is last, TV is before that, listen to music before that.

Hope this saves couple of pulled hairs...

Cheers

4 replies · active 717 weeks ago

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Andytizer 27p · 753 weeks ago

I'm glad this helped! Harmony remotes sure have a lot of idiosyncrasies for something that is supposed to be completely customisable.

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flharmony · 749 weeks ago

I am not seeing a "More Options" tab or button on my 650 website sign-in, nor anywhere on the remote website that has any way to even see how the activities are ordered, except for the initial home screen activities tab which has all of them in blocked sections, but there are no numbers visible!?!

Am I missing something?

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Andytizer 27p · 744 weeks ago

This hack relies on having a certain online version of the web interface to be working. If they've updated it, then it means that we will need to find another way to edit the order of the activities.

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Greg Woods · 717 weeks ago

I've spent most of an evening trying to reorder my activities using the website. Nothing worked! Now I know why. Remove the activities from the hard buttons. Thanks!
It looks to me like the logitech remote software is Abandonware. It needs some serious love!

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PeterMac · 752 weeks ago

thanks for tutorial it's working on Harmony 700 too, but it's not possible to reorder selected activities to top one click buttons they are always on lastest.

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DS1111111 · 751 weeks ago

GREAT Advice! I struggled with this on my Logitech 650, and this helped tremendously.. Thank you!

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Benji · 750 weeks ago

Great advise, the order on the screen was becoming maddening! I don't care for the fact I have set all of the hard buttons on my 700 to a utility activity in order to basically get rid of them. But I did not use them often anyway..Thanks for the help!

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CuriousGeorge · 750 weeks ago

Man I tried this approach a couple of times on my 600 and it just doesn't work. I tried this first shortly after you first posted it, then again today with the same result. No matter what order I try my remote always ends up in the same order. The one thing that is different on my remote that may be making it fail is that I only have 4 activities. The examples you have show 6, could that make a difference?

This limitation of the Harmony software is just ridiculous. What a fabulous remote except for this one HUGE missing feature. Shame on Logitech for not fixing this. No software updates for almost a year now. What are they doing over there?

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flharmony · 749 weeks ago

I am not seeing a "More Options" tab or button on my 650 website sign-in, nor anywhere on the remote website that has any way to even see how the activities are ordered, except for the initial home screen activities tab which has all of them in blocked sections, but there are no numbers visible!?!

Am I missing something?

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Bob · 749 weeks ago

Wonder why this sadly does not work with my 650.

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Wierzchon · 735 weeks ago

THX, this is very helpful "hack"... of course this is not real hack but solution, anyway GR8! It's really work on my H600... what can i say? i think that silence in direction of Logitech company is more expressive than any other @#^&%@^# words... :( i'm disappointed that nobody "there in Logitech" don't think of us - users...(bugs in functionality, wrong translation in many desktop software messages, etc. ) i think that this really sad :( By the way i was just before minute did transfer form my H525, and maybe this is a first feeling but i think that 525 was much better, even was have other display... was more clear and more "hand friendly" anyway i was not have a other solution because buttons on 525 was not work (wrong materials inside was used to build internal buttons contact places, yes! this is true, and with time this contact places was oxidizing a lot...) ... ok. i don't wanna boring you more...

one more for the end: do you know how you can add more that 6 devices... probably this is possible, because when i was did transfer from Harmony 525 to Harmony 600 i saw on the list 7 devices, then i was delete one of this, and then i was saw message so this is maximum number of possible devices and i can't add any more... :( please, if you (somebody) can check this, pleas, send some solution...

THX and greetings...

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orangetree · 729 weeks ago

whats the order for 3 activities ?
tkx

1 reply · active 611 weeks ago

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david · 611 weeks ago

Did you ever figure this out? I'm also struggling to re-order 3 simple activities. Thanks.

+1 Vote up Vote down

Trey · 721 weeks ago

honestly, logitech has really dropped the ball on this functionality. it really shouldnt be THIS hard to do this...

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brentquick 1p · 720 weeks ago

Update you can no longer get to it the way the article defines - now it is here --> http://members.harmonyremote.com/EasyZapper/UserH... which is simply the Home option.

1 reply · active 720 weeks ago

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aprest · 720 weeks ago

The menu item to reorder the activities is no longer there. Unbelievable!

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gdmye1 · 717 weeks ago

Just tried and it worked perfectly, thanks heaps

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Rambytes · 710 weeks ago

I've try and not working... the order activity is all messup...

I've try the new link to re-order, try to reorder like 1, 4, 5, 6, 3, 2 and it's not working...

+1 Vote up Vote down

Rambytes · 710 weeks ago

I'ts a pain in the a**, but the easy way i've found, it this (for me and my config, but you can try):

1. Delete ALL the activity (NOT device)
2. Re-create all activity you need in generic mode, and include ALL the device you have
3. Name all the generic activity like item1, item2, etc.
4. Update the remote
5. Check the order in the remote
6. Rename each activity to match what do you want in the screen, and configure the activity to match your rename
7. Update and enjoy

1 reply · active 518 weeks ago

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Jeffrey · 518 weeks ago

Wow.. Spent hours trying to do what was listed above for 3 activities. This makes the most logical/ universal way to set it up. Thanks

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JefUK · 709 weeks ago

Tried for hours to set the activity order for a 650.

There was not a fixed mapping from the web page to the device. it kept changing. I first tried with the Activity keys set to non-default values. I then set them to the default values, which was better, and I managed to get the first 3 activities into the required order, with the last 2 reversed. However, when I set the Activity keys back to my custom requirements the Activity order changed again! I gave up !

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Jacky Chan · 708 weeks ago

Works fine for the 650...make your last 2 activities 3, 2 and bob's your uncle.

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Will · 698 weeks ago

This has been mentioned before but it needs to be reiterated as it seems people are still having problems with it. This is my work around for the 650

The activity buttons (Watch TV, Watch a Movie, Listen to Music) determine the order of the activities assigned to them. Watch TV is always last, Listen to Music is always first. Any other activities will be in the order you select ABOVE the button order. So I have TV, Bluray, Wii, Boxee, Laptop. Thats the order I wanted in the list but I had TV assigned to "watch tv," Bluray assigned to "watch a movie" and Wii assigned to "Listen to Music." No matter how many times I reordered it, it would always end up: Boxee, Laptop, Wii, Bluray, TV.

I could not find where to assign or de-assign on the website but I knew where it was on the software. Unfortunately the software doesn't allow you to un assign the buttons. So I set them all to TV. Now my order on the remote is Bluray, Wii, Boxee, Laptop, TV, which I am okay with now that I have 3 buttons that all do the same thing.

hope this helps

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idicev · 697 weeks ago

For 600/650, if the three Activity buttons already have activities allocated and 'fixed' to them, and with the v.7.7.0 software: it seems to work best if you just swap between members of a pair, one pair at a time, before downloading to test each new re-configuration.

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greg · 681 weeks ago

i just did what article said and the Activities listed at #3 & #4 on the software ended up being the two shown on the screen of the remote after update.

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theprocess · 679 weeks ago

This is the order I had to use to make the activities show in the order I wanted to see (for 10 activities)

2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 3, 1, 10

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malcolmv24 · 656 weeks ago

For my contribution I would like to add that I followed all of the above suggestions and managed to get 6 activities in the order that I required, but to do this I had to assign incorrect activities to the Watch TV and Watch Movie buttons. Then I had the idea to create a second Watch TV and a second Watch a Movie activity and then updated my Harmony 650. They all were out of sequence but then I tried this order in http://members.harmonyremote.com/EasyZapper/UserH...

TV
TV & AMP
PVR
PVR & AMP
DVD
DVD & AMP
Watch a Movie (a duplicate of DVD & AMP and to be assigned to hard button using 7.7.0)
Watch TV (a duplicate of TV and to be assigned to hard button using 7.7.0)

Then using my PC based 7.7.0 Harmony Software I updated my remote and this one worked by giving the same order on the remote as on screen. Most commonly used on screen 1 and least used on screen 3 with screen 4 showing the hard button commands

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toorek · 646 weeks ago

SUPER! THX to all!!!

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macin · 641 weeks ago

Yessss, thank. After so many try - finally succeed!!!

+1 Vote up Vote down

Cristian Pere · 632 weeks ago

For the people who cannot find the link to re-order activities:

It seems to have dissapeared, but you will find it if you switch to English language (link to do that on the bottom of the page) and then go to "More options"

+1 Vote up Vote down

Geoff · 628 weeks ago

After reading all this, I was a bit doubtful if I should even attempt to reorder the activities on my 700.
I shouldn't have been. It was actually stupidly simple, maybe I just got lucky but here's the way my remote works:
Seen as the hard buttons (Content programmed with the 7.7.0 software) will not be displayed in front of the screen I decided to program these activities on 1, 2 and 3 with the members.harmonyremote.com site just to get them out of the way.

That done I found that whatever order I put the rest of my activities in with the members.web config, they would always follow the pattern I put them in, with the number 4 activity displayed on 1, number 5 on 2 and so on.
I changed the orders of my 8 activities (Wii, Mediaplayer, Playstation etc) around to see what happens but the result remained consistent.

In short:
Put your hard button activities on 1 - 2 - 3.
Put the rest in your preferred order after the above, they will appear on the left with the 4 entry first, the 5 second, the 6 third etc.

Hope this makes sense.
Hope even more it works for you too.

3 replies · active 585 weeks ago

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Geoff's editor · 628 weeks ago

Not quite sure where that 'they will appear on the left' came from...
That should have been 'they will appear on the screen'.

+3 Vote up Vote down

mossrnan 1p · 610 weeks ago

Confirming that this works exactly as Geoff describes. Order the 3 hard-coded activities first, then the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th items in the list were 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th on my 700.

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Geoff (again) · 585 weeks ago

How about this for forgetfulness: 42 weeks after my post on how the remote activities can be reordered I'm searching the net for a way to reorder my activities after some change in hardware at home...
Much to my surprise I found the solution: the one I wrote almost a year ago.
I'm getting old it seems...
Anyway, just to let you all know, my proposed solution still works perfectly.

Greetz to Mossman, thx for the confirlation.

0 Vote up Vote down

Ordy · 619 weeks ago

the link to the website works. I can reorder everything. When I go to update, on a Mac, it downloads a file, connectivity.EZhex, and then freezes. Nada, nuttin', zilch. Does it work on a Mac?

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Trent · 598 weeks ago

The link no longer works, it just says you're using old software. I love how much trouble Logitech seems to go to in order to NOT let us have this functionality!

+2 Vote up Vote down

Tim G · 559 weeks ago

I realize this is a super old post, but I was determined to figure out how to reorganize the screen activities and figured Id post my findings in case any one else stumbles upon this.

The original article is mostly correct in that the only way to re-order these activities through the members.harmonyremote website referenced. There are however a couple main items that kept me stumped until I dug through the comments.

1. The activities you have have assigned to the "My activities" buttons (hard buttons at the top) will ALWAYS be placed at the bottom of the on screen activities list. Always.

To get around this, what I ended up doing was creating duplicate activities for those I wanted to assign to the My activities buttons, but also appear at the top of the activities list on screen. Annoyingly, it seems you can only assign the activity buttons in the Harmony Desktop software.

So, for example, I have 2 "Watch Cable" activities that are identical - "Watch Cable" and "Watch Cable (Button)". I assigned "Watch Cable (Button)" to the "Watch TV" activity button using the desktop software and updated the remote from there. I then went to the members.harmonyremote website and placed "Watch Cable" in activity position #1 and updated the remote again. Finally! Watch Cable was in spot #1 on the activity screen.

2. The other issue was in order to update the remote from the members.harmonyremote website I needed to have the desktop software open. If it wasnt open, trying to open the downloads from the harmonyremote website did nothing.

Anyway, hope this is clear and hope it helps anyone else who was struggling to find a solution to this!

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Tim · 543 weeks ago

members.harmonyremote.com is no longer available. So according to everything above there is no longer a way to fix this. Please update if anyone has found a way.

2 replies · active 497 weeks ago

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Tim G · 542 weeks ago

Not sure what issues youre having with members.harmonyremote.com, but it's working fine here.

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Geoff · 497 weeks ago

Try this: http://members.harmonyremote.com/EasyZapper

-1 Vote up Vote down

logit · 543 weeks ago

i found a way. get a harmony home hub or smart control. I got sick of trying to fix an old device.

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Chris · 533 weeks ago

This worked for me. See this thread: http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Harmony-Remotes/Har...

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Larry · 531 weeks ago

Not on a mac. Bummer....

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Brett · 518 weeks ago

Thank you Thank you Thank you to Geoff and Tim G! It worked on my 650 to duplicate some stuff and assign to the hard buttons,, then my alphabetically named items sorted correctly! (P1 Roku, P2 PS3, P3 TV live).

+1 Vote up Vote down

faceniff apk · 440 weeks ago

informative post, thanks

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Nokia PC Suite · 415 weeks ago

wow wonderful post keep it up.

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non · 388 weeks ago

Sigh...

Thanks for the very thorough post and replies. Unfortunately, it looks like none of these tips apply anymore because the links to log into Harmony to program a remote no longer work. I have found no other way to program the 650 anymore except with the software package downloadable on their web page.

I just removed an activity that I rarely use simply because it is forced to be the first activity in my list. For the rare to never time I may use it I simply don't want it to be the first choice that I have to scroll past every time.

It would be nice if Harmony would just put something so simple into their software.

1 reply · active 384 weeks ago

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Logitech SUCKS! · 384 weeks ago

It would seem that if you delete all of your activities and then add them one at a time starting with what you want on the last page first, syncing inbetween each activity you can put them in the order you want... It works but takes a ridiculous ammount of time for a simple feature that should have been left alone.. SUCK IT LOGITECH!

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Dave P · 377 weeks ago

Tim G's suggestion worked by assigning the activities to the hard buttons in a certain order ( 4 activates, 1 = BluRay is unassigned and is first on the screen, then assign in the following order 2 = Listen to Music, 3=Watch TV, 4=Watcha Movie) to get the activities in the right order.

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-1 Vote up Vote down

Stevvie · 374 weeks ago

you can still log in using this link http://members.harmonyremote.com/EasyZapper/New/M... Hope this helps

+1 Vote up Vote down

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Joe Orlando · 288 weeks ago

FYI, for Harmony 650 go to Buttons -> Cusomize Activity Buttons -> Go. Re-assign the activities the order is:

1 - "Listen to Music"
2 - "Watch TV"
3 - "Watch a Movie"

Unbelievable that Logitech can't get this right.

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