Wonder if it is a bug or not... but here is my UseCase.
I have two shades. I want to control them as a group. As suggested by @bravenel in one of the earlier post I am using the room lighting to activate both of them. This works fine.
I am using the Zigbee Generic Driver for both of the shade.
If I independently open the shades with the remote ( not by HE), the position will be updated in activation settings (below),
but the information is not propagated to the grouping.
Interresting - I'll try it with the dashboard... but what I did try is with Homekit. Since the value does not update, I cannot Voice control it with Siri... I need to reset the status first.
The devices are close. The actuator shows open. I hit open and the devices are opening.
But I have to go to the device page. I cannot control from the dashboard. Or at least I have not been able to select any template proposed to me by the dashboard builder that would have an effect. But if I reset the state, then I can use the shade template and it works fine.
Since the actuator does not show the real state, it cannot be pushed to HKit either, as a result it cannot be control by voice with the HomeKit integration. Which in essence is the same as with the dashboard. Cannot control until the state is coherent
I'm testing this with a Dashboard. Created a Room Lights with shades in it, and the Activator device. I put the Activator device in a Dashboard with a Shade template. Clicking on the Shade icon in the tile causes the real shades to open or close as expected.
I added the Activator to HomeKit, and it works there as well. One thing to know about the Activator device, is that it shows the end-state of being opened or closed immediately, whereas the real device has a travel time. Although, in HomeKit the Activator device does show "Closing" for some time, and then "Closed" a bit before the real device.
There was no problem with adding this Activator to HomeKit. It showed up as a shade device.
If you want to control the shades manually outside of Room Lights, and have the Activator follow accordingly, you have to add one of the indicator options. This should be one of the Group Indicator choices:
If you have multiple shades, and only manually open/close one of them, then that will throw everything off. Most common use would be "Indicator only if All Are On".
Ah, I see the problem. On/Off doesn't apply for shades, and RL doesn't handle this case for the indicator to be set. That means the Activator device is not being updated to reflect the correct state of the shades. I will look further into this, and see if this can be fixed.
This will be fixed in the next release. It will need one of the two Indicator options for the Activator state to track the real device state, if it is changed manually.
In RL, go to the "Means to Activate Lights" section, then the "Activate Lights Options" section -- then on that page, it's here (sample entry selected for example's sake):
Hello all, I am taking a chance here. This situation bothered me for quite a while and i didnt quite figure out the normal behaviour.
Situation : 2 shades with one Room light activator. I typically use the RL activator to open fully both shades or close them - (no partial open/close).
When I open the shades... the status of the activator indicates open at the end of the cycle. When I close the shades, both linked shades close, the activator remains in the target position until the cycle end, then it is displayed open.
I am wondering if it is the expected behaviour. I would assume that if all shades are closed the RL activator status would be closed...
