The Scene activation switch is a special kind of virtual device. It's on/off state, as you've discovered, reflects the activation state of the Scene. If all devices are at Scene settings, then it is on. If any device in the Scene is not in its Scene setting, then the activation switch is off.
This activation switch is unusual because it can be used for On when it is already on, and used for Off when it shows being off. I don't know if this works correctly in a Dashboard. So for the case you are describing, you should be able to turn off the Scene lights by turning off that Scene switch, even if it is off already.
At the moment I'm just looking at it on my dashboard. That was how I noticed it went off when I adjusted one of the dimmers. So if I hit it again on the dashboard when it's off, it turns the scene on again and resets the dimmer to the scene's value as you would expect. But, from what you say, if I turn that same switch off in my RM bedtime rule as I am currently doing, it should do what I want anyway and turn off even though it already is. If so that's ideal.
Like I said, I think Dashboard is unaware of these special switches, and is interpreting what to do based on switch state. But RM doesn't care about switch state. If you tell RM to turn something off, it will send an off() command.
And, there's no reason that you have to use the Scene switch to turn these lights off. You could just put them directly into your bedtime rule. Using the Scene switch just introduces an extra level of stuff having to happen. I'd put them straight into the rule.
Yes I could. But surely one of the benefits of a scene is to put a set of lights together in one place. If I then want to add or remove a light from that scene I've only got to do it in that one place.
True. Tinkering with one's automation setup is something one does.... Two schools of thought: Keep is Simple Stupid, and Make it Elegant and Well Grouped. KISS vs MEWG.
Maybe this is known issue - I didn't see chatter about it above... When using the clone option, it appears the activate and capture devices get the name "scene clone". When you change the name of the scene the device names do not change. Thus I have several "clone" switches and not sure which scene they actually apply to.
Diggin in, in the options, it appears there is an Application State named NN that does match the name of the devices - very weird.
It has to name them something. You can change the device names if you want, just edit the Label field. The app uses their device id to refer to them, not their names.
And, don't worry about nn. That's a transitional mechanism to get the devices from the clone source into the clone copy.
You could capture the state of the lights with RM, and have RM activate the scene, and then later restore the prior state. You'd need a rule like this one, where myActivator is some other device, not the one created by Scene.
Conditions: myActivator On
Rule: myActivator On
Actions for True: Capture [Scene devices], activate myScene
Action for False: Restore
In this case, when myActivator is turned On, the rule captures all of the Scene devices, and then activates the Scene. When myActivator is turned Off, it restores the devices to their prior state.
Another way to do it would be to clone the Scene in question, and use it as the capture / restore mechanism.
The rule would be this;
Condition: myActivator On
Rule: myActivator On
Actions for true: On: CloneScene-Capture-switch, activate myScene
Action for false: Activate CloneScene
With this method, turning on myActivator causes the cloned scene to capture the settings, and then later that scene can be activated to restore the settings.
I created a new scene, however I can't get it to be discovered by Alexa. My other scene is in Alexa and works great, not sure why this one won't show up.
