Weird Homey behaviour using Harmony touch universal remote

Hey Homeys!

Boy, is this going to be a long post…read only if you are a nerd and interested in fringe issues regarding Homey and stuff that is not really supported.

So, a long time ago (long before Homey even was a fantasy in a small future dev’s imagination) I was using 433 MHz power plugs. I also used a Harmony universal remote to control my TV-setup and I wanted to integrate control of the 433 MHz plug I used for the ”media center” to stop standby power usage. However the Harmony Touch works only with RF-signals so I went on the World Wide Web. :upside_down_face:

I found a thread in a forum where a smarter guy than I hade used an IR-extender to make this work. The extender works by receiving the RF-signals, converts them to 433 MHz signals that it sends to its ”brother” that converts the signal back to RF that is sent to the unit you want to control. In this application the ”brother” is not needed. Instead you put the 433 MHz plug in learning mode and press your consigned button on the Harmony remote. The plug picks up the 433 MHz signal from the extender and can now be controlled by the RF remote!

As I stated I did this a long time ago (so long ago that I have forgotten how I did it) and it has worked flawlessly for many years and still does. Fast forward to just a few years ago and Homey was born. Of course I wanted this ”remote hack” to be integrated in Homey…why not right?

So I did the right thing and set Homey in learning mode for a 433 MHz remote and pressed the ”Main power On” button on the Harmony remote. Homey found the signal and set up the device as a remote. Of course a 433 MHz remote in Homey is not much use, especially in this configuration but hey…if you can do it you should right? :wink: I don’t think I have ever used it to be honest. So the other day I wanted to see if it still worked. And now we get to the weird stuff…

I created a flow with WHEN ”Main power ON is pressed” (on the Harmony)——> THEN ”Send notification to Paxman”. I also added flow for ”OFF”.
I pressed the button and got the notification…same when turning it off. All good! The evening went on…and suddenly I get the notification again…and no-one was even close to the remote. :thinking: This happened several times during the evening, both ON and OFF notifications but I had no time to investigate. The next day when I woke up I saw that the notifications hade continued to come all night so it was time to take a look at it. Surely this must be a Harmony issue! So I powered down the remote and waited. A few minutes later the notification came agan…wtf! :face_with_raised_eyebrow: OK…it must be the IR-extender that is acting up…pulled the power cord to it and waited. You guessed it, the notification came again! :scream:

So this is a Homey issue! For some inexplicable reason Homey either sends ghost commands or ghost notifications. In my mind it should not be ghost commands since the TV wasn’t turning on and off corresponding to the notifications.

So why would Homey send notifications if the ”WHEN” trigger is not tripped? I had to delete everything connected to this thing I Homey to not be spammed with notifications.

If you read all this I thank you! :blush: If you have any idea what’s going on here I would love to hear your thoughts.