I'm curious to hear about other's experience in using the Harmony hub + remote with Sonos. I'm considering a purchase, but just not seeing a lot of advantage. I understand that it really has more to do with everything else you've got, not just your Sonos system.



In terms of just Sonos, the harmony app and remote can't do anything more than the Sonos app can do...less actually. It does allow a limited integration with Amazon's Echo (which I have), but Sonos has promised to integrate directly.



That means it comes down to 'everything else'. In terms of getting the HT audio and tv turned on at the right inputs, that isn't a big deal for me. I do have a playbar, so TV audio is automatically on when the tv is sending it signals. Nothing for Harmony to do there. If I didn't have a playbar, I think Harmony would get my purchase on this feature alone. On the TV, I have 3 inputs. Blu-ray is used rarely, maybe every other month, so Harmony can't help out much there. The other 2 inputs are the Fire TV and cable. I'll start with Cable first.



The Cable is Xfinity X1, controlled with a universal remote. I can turn on the tv, and control the playbar volume with no issues. I rarely actually watch channels, preferring the DVR and streaming services, so I don't know that Harmony's routines to navigate to specific channels and such would be useful to me. The only plus I see is being able to turn on the tv through the Echo. Nice, but not that big of a deal.



On to the Fire TV. It isn't controlled by Xfinity's universal remote, but hitting any key on the fire tv remote will automatically turn on the tv and/or switch to the correct input. In other words, tv input switching isn't a big problem for me. Most of the time, I am not switching between inputs during a tv watching session. I could control the Fire TV through Harmony, but that doesn't get me much. There might be a useful advantage with setting up harmony activities on Echo. Say I want to go directly to youtube on the fire tv for example.



As far as controlling various smarthome items around the house, I feel like I've got that covered already. I got Lutron, Smartthings and such already setup and controlled through Echo already. It would be nice to be able turn off lights when the tv is on sort of thing, but only 'nice'.



I get the value of harmony hub, particularly if you're just starting out with getting control of your audio, video, and things, but it feels like perhaps I'm too far along with other solutions to really get enough benefit out of it. I should also add that I don't have a wife to appease, so simplicity isn't as big of a concern. My two kids only watch fire tv, and as mentioned, that's is. They usually leave the music up to me, or are satisfied with the echo (again, should be solved soon).