Upcoming non-beta update

Hi ALL,

I’m currently using the R2 as my daily remote and, admittedly after a LOT of initial frustration, managed to get it to do everything my Harmony Elite could do and much much more. Much thanks go to folks on this forum as without their help my R2 would have become nothing more than an expensive door stop! I am getting the R3, which I wanted as a backup to the R2, but my shipping number is 4200 so it will be a while.

My current configuration is text only with no figures or fancy icons but the IMPORTANT thing is that it works. I had tried various integrations but had a lot of trouble with them so anything that is IR capable uses IR. Yes, sometimes a command is lost or other minor problems but 98% of the time it is fine.

I am totally not interested in running any beta firmware and am content to wait for the non-beta release of the firmware. My question is very basic. Once the non-beta firmware is released will anything I have currently running on the R2 still run the same way with the new firmware. Other than the IR control, i also have a Home Assistant Green running some lights, shades and even some Wi Fi enabled thermostats. All of them are accessible from the R2. So again will all that stuff run the same way when the non-beta firmware comes out.

Again, THANKS to all on this forum,
Gerry

You should not worry about running the latest beta firmware on your R2. Things will still run the same, or better.

It is very stable and brings many more options and a better configurator UI.

You should definitely give it a go.

Hi harvey28 (love your Alfred E Neuman icon!),

I’m sure your right about the status of the beta, but I have been burned before with beta software on other projects and again what I have is running just fine.

However, that being said the only problem I’ve been having is that ever once in a while R2 loses its Wi Fi connection. Its very seldom but I fool around with the Wi Fi settings and it comes back rather quickly. The other seldom problem is that the R2 will totally lock up and I have to shut it down and restart and then its fine.

Do you know if these infrequent problems were addressed in the beta. Maybe I’ll consider trying the beta.

Thanks,
Gerry

My remote WiFi is pretty solid.

Saying that, last night, it did drop out and took a few minutes to reconnect. This is very rare in my experience.

I do occasionally have to restart the remote though. Again pretty rare.

I still say ‘go for the beta’!

If the beta is that good, why is it still beta? For such a long time? Hopefully this is no proof, that the focus now moves over to R3 and R2 users feel left behind. I activated auto-update for a reason.

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That’s a question for @marton.

R2 and R3 sind mostly compatible so features and bug fixes come for both.

Ralf

It looks like I started a little bit of a controversy!

Since the R3 was supposed to ship with the newer firmware, and that didn’t happen, and also since I really think the beta firmware will be released pretty soon, I think I’ll leave my R2 alone. Once the new firmware is in the non-beta release then I’ll give it a shot.

Gerry

R3 was released with newer firmware. It was beta but newer.

I use the beta from day 1 and only had 1 problem with the backup feature.

Ralf

HarmonyFan,

Really! I’m very surprised that they would release the R3 with beta firmware. Granted that it is supposed to be pretty stable but they are still labeling it as “beta.” I don’t think I can recall any other device released with beta software. Yes, sometimes the released software that comes with other devices is actually worse than beta software but it still is at least released software.

But that also begs the question: If UC is confident enough to release the R3 with beta software why is it taking so long to formally reclassify the firmware as a full release and send it out to everyone else?

Gerry

I don’t own a R3 but as far as I remember all R3’s have the “beta firmware” installed but no beta updates enabled because UC is currently releasing all remote beta updates in the stable release channel as well but only for R3 and not for the R2. This makes it clear that the current beta is acually a stable release with very few bugs that mostly releate to Wifi (see below). This also explains why some users didn’t get the dock update because this was only released in the beta channel as an exception to the remote firmware updates.
There was an explanation in the last Kickstarter update that such a long time without a stable release was never planned. Once the wifi issues (no high channels number and missing keep wifi connected setting) are solved by the wifi chip vendor there should be a new stable release for all models. The delay is mostly caused by the WiFi chip vendor.

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Beta 2.61 and Dock 0.70 totally stable on my R3 .