I’m sure most of you knew this already but having all the features outside of picking new music from my library all on a simple Harmony handheld remote is awesome. In addition to basic transport controls like play, pause and skip… the directional arrows give me the ability to change the display from lyrics, to artist photo, to album cover art, etc… and the up/down arrows scroll through the information on the screen. So it instantly paired and does everything I want.

It includes both Mira and Manta Mini receiver. New Customer with a newer Mac (without IR): Manta Mini Bundle for Mac is the product for you. Youll need your own Apple remote or compatible to use Mira/Manta with your Mac. Manta Mini is our USB IR receiver & allows Mira to see signals from a remote. I originally pulled out my FLIRC (since the newer Mac Mini computers don’t have IR like the older models) but was pleasantly surprised to see the Harmony Companion bluetooth pair to my Mac Mini as a keyboard. Mira is our software that creates actions in all your applications. I was using my iPhone as a remote to control the playlist and FFWD/REW/PAUSE/PLAY/ETC… and the Harmony remote just chose the source and did volume up and down… but today decided to try to get my Harmony remote to control these basic transport features too. What I didn’t like was needing to use the wireless keyboard to change the display. It’s actually what got me to go from Volumio to Roon. I love the display on the big TV when I’m listening to music.

I originally was using simple HDMI to the receiver but the audio would cut out for a second a few times each song and for some reason, using optical fixed it… anyhow, not the point of this post. HDMI connected to the TV and optical out (via HDMI splitter, long story) to my home theater receiver. My Roon Core is a Mac Mini and it’s in my main home theater room.

My harmony remote software for mac