THE PROBLEM
Beginning some time since February 10, 2018, we can no longer invoke many of the Activities our Harmony Ultimate Home via voice commands to our Google Home. When we say, “Me: “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on DVR3,” Harmony responds by voice that it does not know how to respond.(Learn how to configure your Google Home and Harmony hub-based remote to control your Harmony by voice commands at this Logitech Support page: Harmony experience with the Google Assistant.)
THE SHORT VERSION
I discovered through experimentation that for SOME Activities that I have created, Harmony no longer responds to the expression “tell Harmony.”
SOLUTION: Always say “ASK Harmony.” This has completely resolved my problem.
UPDATE 2/14/2018: My symptoms are entirely related to the presence of numerals in my Activity names. See more below.
Me: “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on DVR3.”
Harmony (via Google Home): “Sorry, I misunderstood your last statement.”
Other possible Harmony responses (which vary randomly):
Curiously, SOME of the Activities could still be invoked. Here is the list of failures and successes:
SOLUTION: Always say “ASK Harmony.” This has completely resolved my problem.
UPDATE 2/14/2018: My symptoms are entirely related to the presence of numerals in my Activity names. See more below.
THE SHORT DIAGNOSIS
Some time after 2/10/2018, some hub-based Harmony remote systems stopped responding to certain voice requests made through linked Google Home devices.
Experimentation reveals that Harmony responds with an error message if both of these conditions are true:
- The voice command uses the phrase "tell Harmony,"
- AND
- The Harmony Activity name contains a numeral or a word representing a number
Substituting "ask Harmony" for "tell Harmony" results in normal execution of the requested Activity.
Renaming the Activity to omit any numerical references also results in normal execution.
THE LONG VERSION
Around two days ago, (February 11, 2018), I discovered that SOME of the Activity requests sent to the Harmony Home Ultimate via our Google Home were no longer understood by the Harmony.Me: “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on DVR3.”
Harmony (via Google Home): “Sorry, I misunderstood your last statement.”
Other possible Harmony responses (which vary randomly):
- “Sorry, I don’t understand.” Ask Harmony for help to ask what I can respond to.”
- “Sorry, I’m not totally sure about that.”
- “Sorry, I don’t understand. Visit myharmony.com/google-assistant to learn what I can respond to.”
Curiously, SOME of the Activities could still be invoked. Here is the list of failures and successes:
- “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on DVR1.” FAIL
- “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on DVR2.” FAIL
- “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on DVR3.” FAIL
- “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on Apple TV.” SUCCESS
- “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on PS3.” FAIL
- “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on Chromecast.” SUCCESS
- “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn off.” SUCCESS
Rebooting and power-cycling the Harmony hub and the Google Home had no effect on the symptoms.
I tried altering the name of the Activity in a minor way: I changed “DVR3” to “DVR 3” and “DVr3” (noting that all the problem Activities were all-caps), but the problem persisted.
However, completely changing the name from “DVR3” to “Elephant” allowed me to invoke that Activity by saying “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on Elephant.” Changing the activity name BACK to the original “DVR3” reintroduced the problem (which is a great diagnostic clue).
Eventually, I tried a different verbal command. Instead of saying, “Hey Google, _tell_ Harmony to turn on [activity name],” I said, “Hey Google, _ask_ Harmony to turn on [activity name].” Success! Without making any changes whatsoever, simply changing what we say - using the polite “ask” rather than the imperative “tell” ALWAYS WORKS.
So something has changed. I’m certain that we’ve always said “tell Harmony” because since November 2017, we’ve had a hand-written sign on our AV cabinet which I wrote for my wife the first day I set up Google Home to work with the Harmony. The sign reads, “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on DVR3.”
I tried altering the name of the Activity in a minor way: I changed “DVR3” to “DVR 3” and “DVr3” (noting that all the problem Activities were all-caps), but the problem persisted.
However, completely changing the name from “DVR3” to “Elephant” allowed me to invoke that Activity by saying “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on Elephant.” Changing the activity name BACK to the original “DVR3” reintroduced the problem (which is a great diagnostic clue).
Eventually, I tried a different verbal command. Instead of saying, “Hey Google, _tell_ Harmony to turn on [activity name],” I said, “Hey Google, _ask_ Harmony to turn on [activity name].” Success! Without making any changes whatsoever, simply changing what we say - using the polite “ask” rather than the imperative “tell” ALWAYS WORKS.
So something has changed. I’m certain that we’ve always said “tell Harmony” because since November 2017, we’ve had a hand-written sign on our AV cabinet which I wrote for my wife the first day I set up Google Home to work with the Harmony. The sign reads, “Hey Google, tell Harmony to turn on DVR3.”
Even further and more absolute proof: Google Assistant keeps a log of all your activities:
Unclear is whether the change that’s taken place was by Harmony (Logitech) or Google.
For now, I’m happy to be back in business.
 |
| The same command which worked on February 10, 2018 fails on February 13. |
Unclear is whether the change that’s taken place was by Harmony (Logitech) or Google.
For now, I’m happy to be back in business.
UPDATE: IT'S THE NUMBERS, STUPID
Thanks to feedback from Logitech Harmony forum user "john_woo," I realized that I'd entirely missed a clue that I'd put in my list of SUCCESS/FAIL Activities above. All of the Activities that result in a Harmony error response when issuing the "tell Harmony to" command have a number in them. (And to reiterate, using "ask" instead of "tell" works even with a number in the Activity name.)
Interestingly, replacing the digit "3" with the word "three" doesn't help. The error persists. To test whether the prohibited terms were digits, I tried incorporating a "30" into an Activity name. So it appears that any use of a numerical reference in an Activity name will cause the request to fail if "tell Harmony to" is also in the voice command.
Something appears to have changed in either the Harmony (Logitech) or Google code which prohibits the use of a numerical value (whether expressed as numerals or written out as a word) in a Harmony Activity name, when used in conjunction with a "tell Harmony to" voice command.
“Hey Google, ask Harmony to turn on DVR3”
Interestingly, replacing the digit "3" with the word "three" doesn't help. The error persists. To test whether the prohibited terms were digits, I tried incorporating a "30" into an Activity name. So it appears that any use of a numerical reference in an Activity name will cause the request to fail if "tell Harmony to" is also in the voice command.
Something appears to have changed in either the Harmony (Logitech) or Google code which prohibits the use of a numerical value (whether expressed as numerals or written out as a word) in a Harmony Activity name, when used in conjunction with a "tell Harmony to" voice command.
FOR AN EVEN BETTER HARMONY EXPERIENCE: USE GOOGLE ASSISTANT SHORTCUTS
In the course of trying to find any information about this problem online (and since I just found a post from someone else from February 10, 2018, I’m guessing that this problem is too new for there to be any online information), I discovered that by using Google Assistant Shortcuts, we can eliminate having to say the “ask Harmony to” part altogether. By following the instructions starting in Section 4 of this Logitech Harmony Support page, you can shorten these commands from:“Hey Google, ask Harmony to turn on DVR3”
to
“Hey Google, watch TV”
...or whatever you’d like to say to start a Harmony Activity.
(If you really wanted to, you could use a Google Assistant Shortcut to still say “tell Harmony” and have Google pass along the more polite and functional “ask Harmony” instead.”)
“Hey Google, watch TV”
...or whatever you’d like to say to start a Harmony Activity.
(If you really wanted to, you could use a Google Assistant Shortcut to still say “tell Harmony” and have Google pass along the more polite and functional “ask Harmony” instead.”)
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