The ability to have the bulbs in a Zigbee group turn on and off without popcorning is really, really nice. What about other bulb capabilities, however?
My individual bulbs in a group can receive a number of state variable commands, but when grouped I don't seem to be able to access the "Start Level Change" and "Stop Level Change" commands to adjust those levels as a group with a dimmer switch (using the "held" and "released" properties). If I do this adjustment with several individual bulbs at once, the popcorning is pretty awful, and I end up with the individual bulbs in that set ending up at different levels, including fully on and off.
Is this a capability that will be included in the future?
I've looked at the ABC app, and am reluctant to try that for this purpose, partly because it is far more complex than I need (I'm just doing lights), and I'm also not sure it would be able to do the dimming any better than with the Simple Lighting app (which works fine for me with individual bulbs and a dimmer switch).
I don't know if @stephack 's ABC would do a better job, since I have not tried it, but you shouldn't be intimidated by it. It's certainly can do a lot, but I only use it for lights, and only ever have. It's my go-to app for setting up buttons.
[Edit] removed previous comment about ABC support. I think my knowledge of what it supports is out of date.
The ability to do a StartLevelChange or any part of the changeLevel capability is not a limitation of the app but a limitation of the driver. When you create a group you are essentially using a different driver that then controls all the bulbs. Only @mike.maxwell will know if this functionality will be added in the future or if it is even possible.
Cool. I'm just way behind then. Let me check Xiaomi and I PM you if needed. I may just be sighting out of date experience then. Will edit my post. Sounds like I may be mistaken.
Im finding a need for this too. Im wondering if perhaps the reason its not implemented in Groups & Scenes is that it would need to be supported by the members and there may be no way to tell if all or some of the members support it or not. Luckily my popcorning is not too bad driving the devices directly from Button Controller.
