The rule I wrote above is the only way I know how to do Indicator plus Master-Off. If you want Master-On too, I realize now you'd have to do another layer of complexity to the rule.
if i have lifx lights in a group (which are color/dim able lights) should I put them as bulbs or dimmers? the documentation doesn't make this clear.
Do you want them to be color controlled by the group or just dimmed? I would add them with the highest capabilities possible. The group device will be a color bulb.
i want all the things. color/dimmable. it seems i have it set right using bulbs
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Yup.
thanks. i'm trying to work out how to get the group device to poll the child statuses as they are not updating sometimes (lifx lan driver)
That's not how groups work. The group device controls the group member but will not reflect independent changes in the member devices. What functionality are you trying to achieve? Groups are usually used for a bunch of bulbs that you don't want to have to control independently.
ah so i am using hubitat native group app to control multiple lifx bulbs. As groups from lifx is not supported on the lan driver made by Rob (yet).
So if i change the "group" in lifx it is not flowing through which makes sense.
Yup. You are going to want to control the group device in Hubitat. If you want to use the Lifx app, you want to use the Mirror Me app. That app will make all the device mirror each other and allow you to use the Lifx app.
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ah so cause the lifx lan driver knows the up to date state, i can use one of the child lights to push to the master group light in hub? won't that cause a loop? I guess not as it's the same change.
No, you can't do that. That would cause a complete overload. What you want to do is REMOVE the group and instead use the Mirror Me app. Do not use both.
right. on the setup for the lan local driver it's clear they recommend using groups but i see the value here. will try it out with mirror and remove group. thanks!
Yes, that's if you are just going to control from Hubitat and want to control multiple lights together. You're trying to get the bulbs to mirror one another. That's a bit different.
That's what the two rules above accomplish. I didn't do it with lifx lights, but if you can replicate the lifx device in HE, then the rules above treat the master as both off-control and master-indicator.
I've made the device group behavior request before, but it's been a while, and I'm not sure if it's on any priority list. @mluck, @TranDzung you should add your voices too:
Group state should be 'on' if any of the dimmers/switches are 'on'. Perhaps it could even be optional setting.
This matches group behavior in other lighting control systems: Philips Hue, Apple HomeKit, and Lutron RadioRA 2 (toggle/room monitoring).
Tagging @bravenel
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Groups don't work the same way as Scenes, where the Scene Activator is manipulable indpendently of the devices in the Scene. The devices in the Group are controlled by the state of Group device, so making it be on if any devices are on, would turn on all of the devices in the Group.
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Totally understand how Groups currently work, and I'm pretty sure I understand Scenes as well. But it seems to me that we're talking here about something else, a variant of Groups, that I'll call "Zones".
To my thinking a Zone is variant of a Group whereby a group device is 'on' if ANY of the members are 'on' and 'off' when ALL of the members are 'off'. More specifically:
- the master device is an indicator for the zone, flagging whether ANY in the zone is 'on' versus whether the zone is ALL 'off' (as in, "golly gee, I wonder if there's anything left on in the basement?"); and,
- the master device is also a controller that will shutdown all the slaves (as in, "jeez, think I'll just flip this switch and the whole basement will turn off"). In a sense, it's really half of a master because, at least for my use-case, there isn't a need to turn the whole group on. Having half a master also makes building zonification rules much easier.
See above in the thread for the simple pair of rules that operationalizes the Zone concept.
I literally deleted a dozen Groups from my HE setup because I couldn't accomplish this idea, which is essential if one wants Group control with at-a-glance dashboard style status. And then, to my surprise, I learned in this thread that there are others who have astrong text similar need. Bruce, forgive my ignorance (newbie here), are you saying that we can accomplish "Zones", as defined here, via "Scenes". If so, that would be fantastic because, as I sit here now, I don't see how. Which of course is why I resorted to rolling my own RM4's.
Please consider this my +1'ing a feature request: optionally the state of a Group device can be derived from the status of the switches and dimmers in the group, as defined here.
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So in a way exactly like Philips Hue does groups and zones. To be honest I find that way more intuitive then the way it is on HE at the moment. I've tried to accomplish it too but never got it working. Also tried with scenes, but I don't see it if it is there. So I settled for a workaround. My wife hates it though. She can't get used to it so she complains about it every now and then.
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Yup, exactly the same problem here, and the same WAF issue. Which is why I developed these "zoning" rules. We'll see what happens with WAF lol.
Is this a platform constraint or an as-programmed application constraint? If it's the latter, I'd still request the behavior change. As stated, the Hubitat implementation is completely different than how other lighting control systems treat light group status.
