You are most likely here because your Shield TV will not pair with the Harmony Hub. Don’t worry as an Information Technology professional even I’ve had difficulties pairing the Nvidia Shield with the Harmony Hub. In this article, I will provide a few tips on how you can pair Harmony hub with Shield TV.
For me, there was no straight forward way to pair the Harmony with Nvidia Shield. I don’t quite know what exactly worked and how I was able to pair my harmony hub with the shield TV, but in the end, everything worked out. I will try to backtrack and recreate some of the steps I did to force the pairing process.
Out of the box, my Nvidia Shield TV or the Nvidia Shield TV Pro would not pair with my Harmony Hub. I have followed every step that Nvidia support and Harmony support suggested. From the activity creation screen of the Harmony App, I have initiated the Bluetooth pairing process using the Harmony App on my Google Pixel 3. I just wanted to rule out any operating system or device conflicts, so I launched the Bluetooth pairing process from an iPhone too. It didn’t matter which phone I used, and the result was a failure.
Nvidia & Harmony Pairing Recommendations
As per Nvidia and Harmony, a quick wifi scan on the network picked will pick up the Nvidia Shield TV within the Harmony App. This step worked for me, and the Shield was picked up by the Harmony App.
Harmony then asks you to create an activity with the Nvidia Shield device, but the operation would never finish because, in the end, it asks to pair your Harmony Hub with the Shield TV device.
This last step never completes because the Harmony App never puts the Harmony Hub into pairing mode for your Nvidia Shield to pick up.
Ultimately, the whole Nvidia Shield TV activity creation fails. However, the Nvidia Shield device gets added, but you won’t be able to use the activity or control the device until the Shield pairing is successful.
Pair Harmony Hub With Shield TV Workaround
Don’t worry because all hope is not yet lost. I will give you some workarounds or tips to force the Bluetooth pairing. Now I am not sure what combination of these steps ultimately works but keep trying, and eventually, the devices should pair.
First, remove the Shield TV devices that you have added via the Harmony app on your phone and any activities associated with it.
Second, go to Nvidia Shield settings but don’t scan for Bluetooth devices yet (a completely different option from adding a shield accessory).
- Seat yourself close to your entertainment devices and have a laptop handy. Download and install the Harmony Software.
- Get yourself a Micro USB cable, usually comes with Harmony devices.
- Take your harmony hub and plug it into your laptop using the Micro USB cable (It will receive power from the computer’s USB port)
- Open the Harmony App and login to your Harmony account, create one if you don’t already have one.
- Scan for your Nvidia Shield device via Wifi Scan through the software, once it is found to create the Watch Shield TV activity.
- At the end of the create an activity guide, the Harmony software will put the Harmony hub in Bluetooth pairing mode.
- Now scan for Bluetooth devices on your Nvidia Shield, and you should be able to pick up the “Harmony Remote.”
Setting up your Logitech Harmony for use with Shield Troubleshooting
Sometimes you can successfully pair the “Harmony Remote” on the Shield using the above steps, but you can still not control your Shield using the harmony app on your phone.
Please try the following steps in that case.
- Go to the Harmony App settings and do a force “sync” to sync any changes that you made in the computer software on your Harmony App. (This is done automatically in most cases)
- While the Harmony hub is still plugged into your computer, remove the activity from your Harmony app on the phone but don’t remove the Shield device.
- Recreate the “Shield TV activity” on your phone via the Harmony App this time around. At the end of the activity creation, Harmony should put the hub into pairing mode and on your Shield device rescan for Bluetooth devices. The “Harmony Remote” should be picked up and click on it to pair.
- You should now be able to control your Shield TV with your harmony app.
Once you are able to control the Shield using your Harmony App successfully, you can unplug the Harmony hub from the computer and return it to its original location. Once the Harmony hub is AC powered and back online, go into your harmony app settings, and force another sync. Doing this very last sync will copy any newly added settings to your harmony remote.
You should now be able to control your Harmony hub using any Harmony hub touchscreen remotes such as
- Harmony Ultimate
- Harmony Ultimate Home
- Harmony Ultimate Touch
- Harmony Ultimate One
- Harmony Pro
- Harmony Pro 2400
- Harmony Elite
- Harmony 950
You can also add another additional non-touchscreen remote with the Harmony hub such as
If it all worked out, you should be able to use your Harmony remote with the Nvidia Shield TV successfully. I know the Harmony software is not the greatest and the most intuitive, but once you can set it up one time, you can pretty much forget about it.
The device controls will work as it should. You can use the Harmony remote and enjoy entertainment for months or even years. I have not had any issues with harmony disconnecting from the Nvidia Shield after setting it up using the instructions provided in this article.
We hope this article sheds some light on Nvidia and Harmony pairing issues. If you have any comments or suggestions for us, please leave them below. If you are interested in more articles like these, consider subscribing to our blog below if you are on a mobile device or to your right if you are on a computer. You can also find us on Facebook as well as on Reddit.
This did not work…
The bluetooth device was removed from the Shield. Re-pairing is not possible, that option just doesn’t exist in the harmony!!!
So I have to remove the Shield completely and recreate all activities that I have, including all commands.
that takes me a complete afternoon!! (Yes, I have separate activities for eg. Netflix, Disney+, etc. to make it easy for my family members)
A desperate shout to Logitech: Logitech, how about using your own devices so you can experience what your customers have to go through!
You can get the pairing option to show up again, keep trying the methods suggested. You may even have to factory reset the Shield. I have mine paired currently so it is possible.
Yes, it is quite tricky to get it to pair but once paired, it holds the information for the remote. Also, yes I am not sure why Logitech doesn’t have a fix for this yet.