I come from the world of theater/entertainment lighting, and I'm hoping a concept that's implemented in those lighting consoles could possibly be executed in this format as well. It could streamline and simplify the amount of scenes necessary... at least for the user.
Rather than have an individual scene for each room (or group), it would be nice to have a "master scene" that stores all the parameters for all the devices used in a scene. Instead of individual "Livingroom Mood", "Bedroom Mood", "Movie Mood" scenes, there is one "Mood" scene, and the individual groups, or even one device, can then just be executed from that scene.
How would that work? A scene is a collection of particular settings for specific devices. The settings within the scene don't match. But when you activate a scene you are telling the hub to set these devices to these settings. That's kind of the whole point of the scene.
Rather than the scene activating all the devices, it would just activate a subset of the scene based on the group or group of devices selected.
The trade off would be that it's a two step process... select a group, then select the scene to activate for that group (unless you are activating the entire scene). But from my perspective, it would be easier to organize.
I may be putting too much emphasis on the "programming" side of things...
Yeah, how would you pick which devices? That just isn't possible from a dashboard or Alexa or Google Home. But a scene is. Why not just create two scenes instead of one. I'm not seeing why anyone would want a subset of a scene.
I don't think he is talking about what is currently possible. He is talking about how another system (in theatre) works.
It's a little bit like the circadian app only with the whole spectrum of light setting possible. It makes sense to set just a mood / scene regardless of devices. And when you do enable a device it would go to the settings of the current mood / scene.
I just don't understand how that would be managed. It just doesn't make sense to me to pick a scene and then pick some devices from that scene to apply the settings to. Why not simply create 2 or 3 scenes? It's not like you are limited to the number you can create. The scene settings are intended to be a set of settings for a set of devices. If you're going to go through all that trouble, why not simply set the settings manually? You also don't answer any of my questions. How would you invoke such a scene from a button device or from a voice assistant. You couldn't. It just doesn't work that way.
Innovation never comes from thoughts that are NOT out of the box. That is why people spill their thought once in a while.
The scene could be triggered by a mode or time or whatever.
The point to all this is that you can create scenes for situations regardless of devices using those scenes. The upside of all this is that you don't have to worry about adding devices every time you change something.
And yes something similar can be created with workarounds in the current system.
How? How would you pick the devices you want to apply the scene to from Google Home? Or a button device? I just don't understand how this would work from a practical sense.
It's no so much as choosing devices. It's more like any device you turn on checks if the current scene has any settings set which are applicable for the device. Then use the settings when turning on.
Yeah, that doesn't work unless you remove all dimmers and switches and change over to button controllers. Dimmers always return to the last setting they were set to. That is part of the firmware of the device. And so, if you did change over to all button controllers, what you say is already possible in the architecture of Hubitat. It's not very practical to implement but it is possible. Also, if you use modes and motion sensors, you can already accomplish this. You do if you use "set dimmer by mode" or "activate scene per mode" for example.
But that is not anything like what the OP suggested. So, I'd like to circle back around to the original topic of applying the scene settings to a set of devices and the questions I had on that.
I preface this with reiterating that I'm new to the smart home world, but let me give you my real world example. I understand there are many ways to skin a cat, I'm just trying to reduce the amount of "stuff" that needs to be organized and updated on my controller.
Let's say, I have a whole bunch of outdoor smart RGB porch lights, distributed across several multi-tap capable switches. Throughout the year, I want those lights at various colors and intensities based on the season, so I create one scene called "Porch Season."
At the back deck switch, I program one up tap to take the group of lights locally connected to that switch to full incandescent because I heard a noise. Later, I want to restore those lights back to their Porch Season look with three up taps on the switch. Rather than having to create and update multiple "Porch" looks for each group of outdoor lights, I simply tell the back deck lights to go to "Porch Season." I don't want all the lights to restore, because my wife has done one up tap at the front porch to take those lights to full incandescent, and I don't want to affect those lights as well.
As I said, there are other ways to skin this cat, but I'm just trying to reduce the number of individual scenes that I need to create and update.
Okay, but what you don't mention is how you are telling the system that you only want that scene to apply to certain devices. How are you selecting that with your multi-tap button that you mentioned? What you are asking for in your example is a psychic controller. And that's wonderful but not realistic.
What you could do instead is change your frame of thinking. What you could have that button device do instead of invoking another scene is to do a capture before that all lights at incandescent is applied. Then you would restore that setting when the button is pressed a second time. That is possible to do today without any changes to the way that scenes are applied. You just have to change your frame of thinking. If you want to see what I'm talking about, I can put an example rule together this evening.
Thanks for the suggestion. Being new, I had not discovered that capability yet. But my concern would be the amount of time between the snapshot and the restore, if I'm understanding you correctly.
Again, I'm suggesting future functionality. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to create it. Whether it's worth anyone's time to do so is a whole other question.
I'm not quite advanced enough yet to follow this completely (I haven't delved into variables within Hubitat yet), but you originally made mention of a Capture event. When would that occur? At the first button press to turn the back deck to full incandescent?
I'm sorry, I assumed that you were experienced with Hubitat since you were asking to change it. No, the capture happens BEFORE the lights turn bright. Then when you press the button a second time, they are restore to the settings they were before you pressed the button. So, if your wife has turned the lights up in one area outside, that is the settings they will return to when they are restored.
