It would be great if there was a way to select multiple objects objects and take action on them in bulk. This would be very useful for deleting multiple devices or apps (child apps), but would also be very handy for editing similar objects. For example, if I select 5 devices, the UI could show me only the knobs and dials which are common to all of those devices, and let me set them all in one swoop.
I could have used both a bulk edit and bulk delete functionality just tonight.
I had a handful of virtual presence devices that I wanted to switch to a different driver. Including a couple of click&drags to scroll the page and the driver selection box, I count a minimum of 7 clicks and 2 page loads per device driver changed. A bulk edit function could let me edit 5 devices in about 12 clicks and 2 page loads, instead of 35 clicks and 10 page loads.
After that, I needed to do some device cleanup, having recently moved a bunch of zigbee bulbs over to a secondary hub. I had 9 bulbs that were listed twice, once for the new virtual device sync'd from hub 2, and once for the original when the bulb was paired with hub 1. 5 clicks and 2 page loads to delete each bulb may not seem like much, but multiply those by 9 and it gets a little old. With a bulk delete, I envision clicking once to enter bulk mode, click once on a checkbox next to each device to be deleted, once on a delete button, and once more to confirm. 9 devices deleted in just 12 clicks, instead of 45!
I'm sure this would not be trivial to implement, and is probably not a high priority for the hubitat team right now, but I wanted to at least throw it out there for discussion and get it on the radar as something to consider in the future.
Just had another moment where I thought of something I'd like to do, but am not excited about doing on a per device and app basis - Turning logging on/off. As I set things up, I usually turn logging on by default, so that I can see what hubitat thinks is happening with the devices. However, as I've added more and more, and learned more about what hubitat logs, I realize it's not necessary to have logging turned on for everything all the time.
Take a room's motion lighting for example. Right now, that might involve 3 zigbee bulbs, 1 group containing the bulbs, 3 motion sensors, 1 motion zone containing the motion sensors, a motion lighting rule, and maybe switch or button controller. I probably don't need logs from all of those all the time. If I wanted to see the individual bulbs or motion sensors logs for troubleshooting, I could turn those on as needed.
It would be nice if I could bulk select all of the bulbs, motion sensors, or whatever I don't want logging for, and turn those off in one swoop.
Debug logging should turn off after 30 minutes for all native drivers and that is the standard for community drivers. So, there really is no need to turn it off manually. It will shut off on it's own.
The problem is, the only way to do that is to implement a command within the driver to allow that setting to be changed by an app. Otherwise, the only way to change it is by the GUI. That means that a new command would have to be added to every driver in the Hubitat ecosystem. That's just not really practical.
The logging was just one example of where a bulk edit function like I described in the OP would be useful. If I could select a bunch of devices and be able to edit any setting/attribute that is common among all of those devices, that is something that would be useful. Maybe not everyday, but fairly often, and those times that bulk edit is needed are the times that the current UI gets painful. When you need to change a setting on several devices (or more) at once, it's annoying to have to go in to each device individually, change the setting, save it, and then go on to the next device.
Again, I realize that this is probably not something that is at the top of the team's priority list, but it's definitely something that I think should be on the list of features to add.
Did you read my response? The only way to that is from within the driver itself. The driver would have to have method added to it to change the descriptive text logging via a command, rather than from the UI. That means that every single driver in the hubitat system would have to be modified. Also, all community drivers would have to have this method in them, nothing is currently enforced that way in the Hubitat system. I don't think you understand how drivers and apps work. What you're talking about is HUGE undertaking that would take months of time to complete. Time they would not be able to spend doing anything else. Just to turn descriptive text logging on and off for a bunch of things at once? Not worth it in my opinion.
Again, you’ve completely missed the point. I’m not asking to edit things that the drivers don’t support. I’m just asking for a way to bulk edit settings and attributes instead of individually. If I select 5 devices which all have On and Off buttons, let me turn them all on or off with one click. If the devices I select all have an option to turn on or off descriptive text logging, show me that option, and make my selection effective across all the devices. Even if the devices I select have absolutely nothing in common, I should at least have an option to delete them all in bulk.
Bulk delete would be great at a minimum. It's easy enough to make an error in a bulk upload (e.g., Lutron Integrator). If additional changes are introduced before the bulk upload error is detected, falling back to a prior backup may not be a great option (vs bulk-pruning devices).
It's been nearly a year since this feature request, but I'd like to throw my vote for this as well. I am in the process of doing a major edit to my system, removing and re-adding all of my hue devices and scenes. I would love to be able to bulk delete these devices instead of having to individually delete each one.
I don't have a recent backup. I've been doing too many changes lately. Looking forward to the cloud backup one day.
I had to add 3 additional pico remotes for button control. I'm not sure what order I did think but using the Lutron App to add line-by-line, caused my existing devices to stop working. If I add one additional device to a hub, is it possible to add it without losing the previous links to existing devices?
Sorry this post is off topic now. Would still like bulk deleting of devices, the bulk editing of common fields would be sweet too!
I am not sure if this is relevant, but I messed up my Pico stuff a while back. I deleted a device in the list, and from there out, nothing worked. Apparently this app doesn't like gaps in the list. Once I put a device back into that (low numbered) slot, everything worked fine again.
Maybe you have something similar going on?
Yep. Worth looking at and grab a copy of before this incident and a current one before you mess with anything.
