Groups and Scenes - a few questions

[tray_e]

As the topic states, a few questions on groups in particular.

I have grouped lights (Zwave Dimmers, Zwave Switches, and Zigbee Bulbs) into 3 separate groups, one for each floor. The point is to be able to turn off (or on) all the lights on that floor.

For simplicity sake, the bulbs are also grouped by fixtures so that I can turn on/off/adjust all the bulbs in a fixture. For the fixture groups, all are of the same type always, so I use zigbee group messaging AND on/off optimization. Not having any issues.

So, the questions all pertain to the "floor level" groups. Not having any issues per se, just making sure I am doing things the best way I can. I have noticed that if I trigger on/off repeatedly and too quickly (only did this to test and make sure the group included everything I wanted) there are some misfires. I doubt we are going to be cycling them on and off quickly as a routine habit. So, no issue in my opinion.

1- So, for the mixed groups, assuming I should not do zigbee group messaging unless ALL the items are zigbee. Would that be correct?

2- Should I select the individual bulbs, or the groups I have created (the groups are what I am using, and they have group messaging within their respective groups)?

3- How does on/off optimization work? Should I try to do that in a mixed group of Zigbee and Zwave?

See example for top floor below I have one each for the the outdoor lights, main floor, basement, and top floor. In Google home, I have placed all four of those groups into a room called Castle. So, I can turn off all the lights in the house by saying "Turn off Castle" . (It's handy, because when we are crawling in bed, and my wife says, "Did I remember to turn of the ?" I just tell google to turn off the castle.... problem solved LOL)

[Stephan.J]

I do something similar. You can enable Zigbee group messaging even if you have a mixed group. I would definitely enable on/off optimization. This simply means the hub won't send an "off" command to a light that is already off.

I would select the individual bulbs/switches as opposed to selecting an existing group that forms a subset of the larger group you are trying to create. I say this cause I am not sure how selecting a group inside of a group would effect "on/off optimization" and that feature has worked well for me to speed up the automation.

[bertabcd1234]

I agree with the above.

1. You can enable Zigbee group messaging on any group--it won't break anything, and Hubitat will just apply it to the Zigbee devices within the group, if any.

2. I'd second the recommendation above to use individual devices here instead of nesting groups in groups, though either way could work. What won't work is Zigbee group messaging with nested groups, or at least not well: instead of one Zigbee group message for your "big" group, you'll be sending a group message for each "small" Zigbee group within the "big" group (depending on how those groups are configured). Hubitat can't "see" with this configuration that there are Zigbee bulbs inside that it could simply add to this larger group. Nesting and the resulting behavior is not likely to work as well as just one broadcast. For other cases, the worst outcome is probably just a bit more overhead with the nesting (and possibly no noticeable effect in either case, though for Zigbee bulbs I'd recommend anything you can to make them work well since they don't when directly paired in my experience).

3. On/off optimization does not care about protocol. This will simply skip sending an "on" command to a bulb whose current state already reports as "on," and likewise for "off" commands if the bulb is already in the desired state. You will not want to use this if you have any bulbs (or switches--"classic" Z-Wave switches are a notable offender here) that do not reliably report back their current state. In other cases, it may cut down on traffic and help things work better. I haven't seen any documentation on how this interacts with Zigbee group messaging, but I guess the two possibilities are that it sends the group broadcast regardless of this setting or sends it only if any bulb in the group isn't already in the desired state. When I tested Zigbee bulbs on Hubitat, I did only group messaging without optimization--they didn't need any help to not end up in the desired state.