Over the past year we’ve noticed something interesting—many new Astrion users are long-time Harmony owners.
We wrote an article exploring why this transition is happening, what people miss about Harmony, and what they expect from a modern Home Assistant remote.
Read the full article:
Life After Harmony: Why So Many Home Assistant Users Are Moving Beyond Logitech Harmony
We’d love to hear your thoughts:
• Are you still using Harmony?
• What feature would you miss the most?
• What finally convinced you to switch?
It is really life still with harmony. It is great that the Astrion can be used to control the Harmony Hub and also other entities in Home Assistant.
When is Astrion going to develop a IR Blaster hub including two remote IR blasters to replace the Harmony Hub?
Regarding your question about a dedicated IR blaster hub with two remote blasters to replace Harmony Hub: we are indeed exploring the concept of a new hardware device that would include IR passthrough ports, RS232, and configurable I/O interfaces. However, this is still in the very early ideation phase. At this stage, we are conducting market research to evaluate whether such a product would deliver real value to our users and justify the development effort.
We don’t have a release timeline yet, as we want to make sure we build something that genuinely addresses the needs of our community. To help us better understand the demand, we would be very interested to learn more about your specific use cases—how would you envision using such a hub? What features would be most critical for you?
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I already have direct RS232 integration with HA and my NAD787 amplifier. If you made a hub it would have to have IR control of devices and bluetooth control of NVIDIA Shield.
The board mentioned above integrates HID output control (keyboard emulation), CEC control, Bluetooth HID control, IR control, RS232 control, and 4×4 I/O outputs.
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All very nice but how much do you really need to have control over your stereo components. CEC is always flaky at best. RS2332 has gone to ethernet rather than serial. I/O outputs really only exist on pro equipment.
Can you do it at a decent price point and will it give the same control the Harmony Hub gives? Extra IR blasters are really required for stereo components in cabinets or shelving.
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Thank you for your brutally honest and highly professional feedback—this is exactly what we need at this early research stage.
You are absolutely right on every technical count, and I’d like to clarify how we envision these features in practice:
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CEC is indeed flaky across brands, so we treat it as a secondary fallback, mainly for power on/off and input switching. However, many smart TVs and AVRs do respond well to CEC source‑selection commands. In addition, we emulate HDMI hot‑plug events—many devices automatically switch to the active HDMI input upon detection, which gives us a reliable way to change sources without relying solely on CEC messages.
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RS232 is increasingly being replaced by IP/Ethernet, but we still see a large installed base of high‑end projectors, matrix switchers, and commercial displays that only speak RS232. We include it as a legacy bridge, not a future‑proof star.
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I/O ports—spot on, they are mainly for cross‑ecosystem smart home integration. For example, when a contact closure output from one system connects to our input, it triggers physical‑level actions, enabling reliable linkage without cloud or API dependencies. This is common in professional installations.also they are indeed mostly for pro installations (screen lifts, trigger relays, occupancy sensors)
And you hit the nail on the head: for purely residential use, these features are overkill. But for professional AV control—think Crestron, RTI, or dedicated home‑theatre controllers—they are essential.
Your comment reinforces our belief that we need to refine our positioning: a simplified version with fewer interfaces would be more suitable for ordinary living rooms and light AV setups, while the full‑featured model can target integrators
It is all well and good to have advanced interfaces but the new hub needs to match your target audience.
If it is a direct Harmony Hub replacement than that is all that is needed.
To replace the Harmony Remote and Hub the Astrion needs a Hub.
My setup is so simple, an older super nice amp and a an older samsung tv (still 4k), it doesn’t support ip control so has to have an IR bug, and the amp is rs232. I’ve got an older control4 setup with a c4 remote, and would love to ditch it, something like this working in conjuction with the Astrion remote would be awesome.
I have been using a Harmony Elite for some time now in my home theater. I have also been doing alot of things with Home Assistant. I even migrated the bulk of power-on and input switching from the Harmony to HA. So the Harmony only handles volume and source navigation…everything else is handled by HA via IP control which is 100x better than the way Harmony and similar remotes like the X2 handle things. I do not have a single device in my theater that requires IR so I was looking for something that would let me totally get rid of the Harmony. I have really wanted a HA only remote…The Astrion seems like the remote…I already have “activity” scripts so based on what I have researched the transition should be rather easy. I think I can use TV Card to accomplish what I need…thou a ROS card specifically for implementing “activities” I think would be a great addition to the Astrion. I ordered a Astrion…so hopefully soon I can get it setup. No clue how long shipping takes since tracking updates seem rather useless.
