I apologize if this has been asked before - but I did a search and couldn't find anything.
Would it be possible to have the master device from a light group update per the individual lights. Similar to how Hue does it?
If all lights are on, the master switch shows as on.
If all lights are off, the master switch shows as off.
And (less important) if the lights are dimmed, the master switch shows something - say either the highest, lowest, or average dimmed value of the group?
Way back in the beginning when the Group app first launched, it had a feature similar to this. However, people wanted it removed. Here's why. For a Group, all of the lights follow the master. So if you dim a light, and reflect that in the master, then all members of the group will be dimmed as a result. For some that is not a desirable outcome --> they just wanted to touch a single light, not the entire group. Had they wanted to change the entire group they would have changed the master.
Having said that, your request about if all on, master is on, and if all off, master is off, would not have this side effect, so I will look into it.
About the other part, perhaps there could be an option which if selected, tied all of the lights in a group together tightly --> change one, they all change. That's really a different concept than what is there now.
I don't personally know how Hue does it, but the difference here is that the master really is the Master, that all do what it does.
This is more of a scene issue, but I'd like to see similar logic to Lutron RA2 scenes:
If all lights are set to the levels defined in the scene in any manner, the scene state is on. Otherwise the state is off.
This has the problem of what level/color etc would you set the master for, and the undesirable side effect that doing so would cause all members of the group to follow suit. So this is not happening.
The only one of your requests that is doable is that if all of the members are off, the master should be off as well.
The on and off is definitely the more important - when used in a dashboard app and all the slave lights were individually turned on without the master, it would be great if the next command issued by touching the master switch was off, not on.
That said, I think the status change would have to be done behind the scene without affecting the group. I'm using rule machine to keep the master switch off/on in sync with the slaves and it does cause an issue. Say 2 slaves, one off and one on with the master switch in the off position. If someone (or a rule) quickly toggles the slave that is off to on and then back off - the master switch gets toggled and can potentially turn that individual light back on again. I did a work around this issue by putting a delay with cancel on the rule that keeps the master in sync.
Scenes in Hubitat don't really have an on/off state. The scene activation device has switch functions, but those are not intended to reflect the state of the scene. For example, you can activate a scene by turning that scene activating switch on. Then you can change elements of the scene, but you wouldn't want that to turn the scene activating switch off --> doing so would turn off every element of the scene. On the other hand, if you changed an element of the scene after turning the scene switch on, you can turn it on again (even though already on) to activate the scene --> bring it back to its set scene condition.
Is there an example of how you would use a scene state indicating device? For Lutron, it's simply the state of an LED.
The inference to be drawn is that you'd need a different additional device --> a group status indicator device. It would be On if all members of the group are on, and Off if all members of the group are off. It's functions would be, if On and turned off, to turn off the group master; and if Off and turned on, to turn on the group master switch (thus turning on all devices to the setting of the master).
The use case is ability to track scene state in a dashboard. As the Lutron LED does on a keypad.
I understand your statements on state. I guess, maybe even more ideally, the scene device Off button should be configurable:
There isn't a scene device Off button. There is a scene device switch. So for your list:
As in my post above about Group, the inference is that you want a scene indicating device, where On means that the scene is set in its defined state, and off means that it is not in its defined state. The displayed "state" of the current scene activating device is arbitrary and unimportant to the app. I could change the logic so that its state reflects what you are suggesting, but it's functions would remain the same: namely, On always means put scene into defined state, and Off always means turn entire scene off. Would that work for your case?
OK, to be more precise, the Scene Activator device has On, Off, and Push commands. The switch has On and Off states.
The current On command sets the scene per the app and sets the switch state to On. The current Off command turns all the devices off and sets the switch state to Off. The Push command sets the scene but doesn't do anything to the state of the switch.
I have no issue with the On command - it should always set the scene per the app definition.
My issue is that I think the Off command should be configurable.
I don't like the Hubitat scene Off command turning off all the devices - that's the reason for an Option 3 - do nothing to the lights. That would mimic the Lutron Single/Multi-room scene functionality - there is no off command for a Lutron scene.
I understand others might want to turn the lights off, so my Option 1 current functionality is for them. It's like a Lutron Toggle Control/Room Monitoring button.
I think an interesting choice for turning a scene off might be to return to previous levels, so that's the reason for Option 2. Think of ending a movie and telling Alexa to "turn movie lights off" that would then just put the lights in the configuration before turning the movie lights scene on.
And, as per my previous statements, I'd like the switch state to be On when the levels all match the scene definition (like the Lutron LED). And be Off otherwise.
Then don't turn the switch off. Why do you need to turn it off? What's the point if it does nothing?
Why not have a scene that you just turn on when the movie is over? Alexa, turn on Normal Lights.
I'm seeing if this can be added.
Because someone will tell Alexa to turn it off.
yes, that's the alternative. But as stated before, someone will tell Alexa to turn the scene off. Resetting is better than turning off the lights to me.
I think a group status indicator device would work well! But just to make sure I understand correctly, the state the group indicator device reports to the world would be set by getting the current state of the devices in the group, not by the actual command switch that is part of the group indicator device.
Say the group indicator device command switch position is off, but the lights are all on, the group indicator device will report itself as on. A dashboard app would see the device as on so the next command the dashboard would send would be to toggle the switch to off. The group indicator device command switch is already off, but still it responds to the off command sending an off command to the actual group switch which will change the status of the grouped lights which will subsequently change the state the group indicator device reports. Wow, hope that makes sense.
If I've got it right, I think that would work perfectly. Would that same group indicator device be able to do that with level/color/color temp - it wouldn't always be completely accurate. It could report the color of the majority of the lights. If most lights are red it will say red. If they are all different it just doesn't change its reported state. And level could be the average level of the lights in group.
OK, you convinced me. Adding an option to ignore Off for the activator device. When used, those devices in the scene would have to be turned off independently of the scene.
Also, adding the activator switch as indicator device. It will only display On when all devices are set to the scene definition.
Also added transition time, for gradual dimming of lights that support it.
All of this will be in the next release.
I will explore this idea. It won't make it for the next release.
We were discussing this and came up with an issue we'd like your input on:
You activate a scene, the "indicator" goes on (like the Lutron LED). You change one of the devices in the scene, and the indicator goes off (also like Lutron LED). What should happen to the indicator if you reverse the change you made to the device, in effect, restoring the scene state?
I think that in the Lutron system the LED will come back on if I do this. Say my scene is 3 lights on, and I turn one off, scene button LED goes out. Then I turn that one back on -- scene button LED goes back on?
We were debating whether this should happen or not. The argument against doing this is strong: Suppose the Hubitat scene also involves pushing a button (e.g., a Lutron scene activating button). If I were to just turn on the 3 lights without pushing the button, I wouldn't really have activated the scene, so the indicator should not come on. This implies a subtle difference between how this indicator should work and how a Lutron scene button LED should work.
Bruce - I found another way to accomplish what I needed - I learned how to create additional light groups in Hue via their API. You can't do it through their app. So, while I think others would like this feature and hope it stays on your future implementation list, I personally don't need it anymore. I appreciate your help & time.
The feature of optionally ignoring off and making the activator switch track the scene set state has been implemented in the latest release: Hub Update 1.1.6
Sorry, I've been away for a few days. A few comments:
The ignore off definitely works, but there are UI issues. The off command still sets the switch state to off. Which then doesn't match the desired scene tracking.
The scene tracking sometimes works. I set up a group with 3 Lutron dimmers. Activating the scene works and the dashboard shows the scene switch as on. If I change 1 specific dimmer from the scene then the scene switch shows off. If I change either of the other 2 the scene still shows as on.
It would be nice to have scenes be up-gradeable between app updates. This update forces scene re-creation in order to take advantage of new features.
Re: Lutron buttons. There is definitely an issue that you have when a button in a different system sets light levels. It's already possible to create a loop by assigning a button push to that same button.
One way to break the loop would be to add a Lutron scene capture as part of the Lutron integration app? You could capture the settings from the Telnet output of a button push.
Anyway, thanks for the updates.
The Ignore Activate Switch Off works correctly in 1.1.6.114.
There is an issue on dashboards for scenes that ignore off. When the scene is displayed as a switch (which I think is how it should be displayed) pressing the button when on (which would be a normal off command) the button gets stuck in a "thinking" state for several minutes. Eventually it returns to an "on" state.
The scene tracking also still only accurately follows 1 dimmer in my multi-dimmer scenes.
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