Has any thought been given to facilitating device or light groups. I have a number of automatons that all impact groups (i.e. all outdoor lights, all ambiance lights in public areas, master suite, all overhead lights in kitchen/dining/livingroom, etc.) I have these groups w/in alexa; however, it would be nice to build automations using these same groupings.
As I have built more of the automations I have found I am frequently missing a light for some actions and am losing track of options. It would be nice when building a rule to turn on lights - group A
I can even see grouping virtual devices (i.e. All motion override virtual switches).
Yes, we're thinking about it, and completly understand the need, it's holding us back as well. It will take some time to design a schema that's less limiting than what some platforms have offered.
Yes. I would like to finally have Groups of Groups. I need Guest Bedroom Lamps to be a member of Lamps and Upstairs Lights, while Lamps and Upstairs Lights are members of All Lights.
Crossing my fingers that this doesn't create a recursion nightmare.
There was a suggestion of scenes in a thread about simple lighting app but I think an app that combined scenes and groups would be ideal, and could be used to create virtual switches for other controls or automations to connect with.
Something I’d love to have but don’t have the programming experience to attempt is a method to preset lighting levels by mode. I think someone else is working on an app for that though, but it’s hue specific.
Yeah, I was thinking about a single primary membership, then one or more view groups, the primary group, call it group type room establishes the physical location, group type view could be used for dashboards. A corresponding room device or room app (still weighing the pros and cons on that) would function as a aggregator for all devices contained there in, it could also be an aggregator and filter for smarter presentation of available automations given the known devices in the room.
Another group type scenes would have its own independent characteristics...
These could easily be published as capabilities, simplifying their usage and adoption.
@mike.maxwell I am glad it is being thought through and look forward to it being included in the next release
It is critical that the functionality allow membership in multiple groups. I can see groups also being used for simple organization later for dashboards and such.
THIS! I have wanted Rooms as Things (multiple composited aggregation...is that a thing?) for so long. I've often wondered why rooms are not considered as aggregators or "intelligent" dispatchers for its associated devices. That would be awesome.
Definitely need multiple groups and not assume that groups=rooms.
Some examples:
All locks
All lights except the hall nightlight and the nightlight in the baby’s room
All thermostats and temperature sensors
All battery-operated devices
All zwave devices
All humidity sensors on the top floor
All kitchen pocket sockets and in Wall receptacles except the refrigerator, but no Light switches. (this is a fire safety group: these get turned off if smoke is detected, but the lights get turned on)
All pocket sockets and in wall receptacles in the living room except The one the router is plugged into, which never gets turned off unless specifically being rebooted.
The kitchen has 3 zones for Lighting: the sink, the undercabinet lights, and the top lights.
There are lots of different ways to handle all of this, but groups are definitely many to many and not identical to either rooms or scenes.
A group can be a room, it just doesn’t need to be. I think that’s an easy enough distinction. Create group add wherever you want into it. There should be a method to select group type too, ie dimmable lights or thermostats as specialized groups vs switches.
I’ve just created virtual switches to represent “groups”. For instance the 4 lights in my bedroom are covered by my virtual switch called “My Bedroom Lights”.
As long as it allows for a device to be in more than one group, that's the real issue in this context. As you say, once you have that, a room just becomes another group. But the problem with a lot of the paradigms that start with rooms is they assume a device will only be in one.
Yes! This exactly. I’m in favor of groups, but don’t really care if I can put rooms into a group. The number of times this is useful is so limited. As long as I can puts devices into multiple groups, I’m happy.
@bravenel Why is the “Hubitat Alexa App” not simply called “Hubitat Groups”? It functions just like groups should and is not exclusive to Alexa. The groups can be added to the dashboard and controlled. It allows devices to exist in more than one group, which is perfect.
I am looking for color setting groups. Currently in ST I use TrendSetter so I can have a group of color changing LED lightbulbs be a singular instance (fireplace): example - two LED lights above the fireplace. Then I just call the group name to turn on/off and change color. The command is issued for both lights instantly. Does the light groups allow me to do this too?
Have you looked at the built in Groups & Scenes app? This post is 9 months old. The groups app automatically creates a "master" device to control the group that has color, color temp and level capabilities.
