I have 4 philips hue dimmer switches. Writing a rule for one is pretty straight forward, though cumbersome. Having 4 of them, I have to clone the rule and painstakingly go through and to change the lamp in every place. I would like to NOT have to clone and edit, that is cumbersome and very annoying.
It would be awesome to have 4 instances of a single rule, with the switch/lamp as local variables? Or something similar. Am I abusing the rule machine here? Should I be writing an "App" instead?
You can copy a rule and then edit the copy.
While I plan to revamp the app in the future, what you're doing now looks like the reason I wrote [RELEASE] Dimmer Button Controller (configure Pico to emulate Hue Dimmer or any button device to easily control lights). I didn't like having to choose the same lights for each action (I want all buttons on the device to control the same lights) and I wanted to emulate Hue's multi-press functionality on the Dimmer (something it appears you're doing with a variable, though possibly missing it's "reset after X time" feature). DBC does both (and a version I'm currently working on allows access to Hue scene so you don't have to specify CT and things manually--but my custom Hue integration is also required for that).
oh that is interesting. i dont really use the hue scenes, as i have other philips hue led bulbs, like BR40 canned lights, etc, so I really just trying to match the temperatures, as the BR40s get from 2200-2700 based on dim level.
I was able reproduce the reset functionality with a simple delayed timer (cancelable) on set variable.
You don't need to use Hue scenes to use DBC. It will just soon be an option. As stated in the description, it just otherwise provides for you an option to emulate the behavior of a Hue-paired Hue Dimmer on Hubitat by, among other things, cycling between different bulb settings by manual input of values (color, color temperature, etc., like you're doing in your rule). This is basically what you're doing in your rule but with less clicking and would solve the issue you referred to, I believe.
I guess this question was never answered. My opinion is no, but to get what you want with RM, you would indeed need separate rules. Once you get one perfected, you can create others for other bulbs. But a personal rule (no pun intended) that I have: the RM UI is a bit cumbersome to use sometimes, so whenever I see myself creating a few rules more than a few times (at least ones that take a lot of clicking to create, and even more painfully so when I'm choosing the same device in every action but can't just choose it once somewhere as you also desire), I write an app. That's where the above came in. 
Download the Hubitat app
