So I have been using groups to manage many different scenes and or areas of the home for quick off/on scenarios. I just recently witnessed that my Home group is too large and takes on average of 2 minutes before shutting off every light in the home. I have a mixture of Zigbee, ZWave and Wifi lights and outlets. After seeing this I am going to begin breaking up the home into quadrants to initiate on/off commands more effectively.
So my question...how do you use groups to enable a "Alexa turn off Home" scenario?
You can create a virtual momentary switch (a switch that turns itself back off) and create an Alexa routine to turn that switch on with that phrase. Then in RM you can detect that the switch is on and turn all the lights off directly. That gives you the flexibility to group and delay all you need and you're no longer restricted by groups or scenes or anything. You can also have the rule turn off lights depending on the time of day or mode. For example, my "all lights off" rule doesn't turn off my bedroom lamp if the hub is in Sleeping mode but does in away mode. You can build that right into the rule. All of my "routine" rules no longer turn anything off directly but call to this other rule to do it. Then i only have to change it in one place as my setup changes.
