I know I’ve done this and can’t remember how or when….or if it was some other app.
Example: I have 5 Smartwings Zigbee blinds so far. When I first got them they were extremely flaky and different ones would fail to respond. I worked with others here to help me do things like lower the power on the hub. Those things helped…but I still had occasional misses.
I can easily put each blind on a different line in RM and then put a small delay between each and everything works great.
Is there some way I can just list all five on a line and add a delay that is between each…instead of the RM delay option that delays when the whole line fires.
In Webcore, I would just use a device list and a for each device loop, and the open or close command and delay would only have to be put in the loop once. I'm not an RM expert, maybe it can be done in RM that way as well.
I believe with the Groups/Scenes app, there is an option to setup a delay between each device command - Know as the "Enable Metering" and the delay time is specified in ms - Downside is this App, just works for bulbs, switches, and dimmers (NOT shades). I believe the RoomLighting App CAN do metering for groups of shades, but I don't have an example of that handy.
I've asked to have Shades added to the Group/Scenes app, and have been told that this App is depreciated, and the "right answer" is to use the RL App, which can already support shades - Then within RM, just add a single line/command to effect the group, - and all the included devices are effected with the built in metering delay. So I think that's the recommended HE approach, to avoid dealing with this one device at a time in RM..
I have 18 Smartwings shades. Mostly ZigBee. Two rooms have 5 and 7 respectively. They usually all move together; however sometimes one or two will miss the initial command. On the shade device preference page there is an option for “Enable command retry logic.” It does exactly that. I believe for shades there is a 30 second delay to give shades the time to fully open or close before retrying. That works every time for me. It will retry up to five times.
Question for @bobbyD How many ZigBee devices can the hub, C8 Pro, reliably communicate with when a command is issued for multiple devices? Example, I have a room with five shades, if I issue a single set level or open/close command in rule machine to the shades there is an approx one in four chance that one of the shades will not respond. The oddball out is not always the same shade. If I do it with four they always work. I’m sure the hub has some practical walk and chew gum limits.
I think the hub has a practical limit as to how many simultaneous commands it can execute. Probably not device specific. Likely more an issue of what the ZigBee network can effectively communicate before it is “swamped.” The good news is that they are not lost, with command retry they do get through.
Spacing the commands by fractional seconds solves the problem and isn’t aesthetically noticeable.
ZB is a somewhat special case, as it supports Multicast (the "enable Zigbee Group messaging" option in G&S and RL. - While both ZWJS and Matter support something similar, HE doesn't expose those options in an API (currently). So with multicast for ZB, there is typically a limit of 8 groups (typical FW compile limit), but I believe (not sure?) up to 32 devices can be in a group:
Shades are another "special case" as they usually are battery powered and sleepy, so a refresh may be required to wake them up (with a pause, for them to all awaken - This is like FLiRS in ZW), then a single ZB multicast/group command to make things simultaneous move.
Someday HE will catch up with similar options for ZW and Matter. (to be fair this wasn't possible under ZW/Zip limitations, so its only been more recently possible with ZWJS) - As for matter groupcasts, it was "finalized" (is anything final in matter?) in V1.3 of the spec, but even HA doesn't support it yet..
Bottom line, if you hope to move multiple shades nearly simultaneously, then ZB with "ZB Message Group Enabled" in RL or Groups & Scenes is your best bet.
Thank you for the info. Genuinely not unappreciative. If I were in a commercial environment getting shades to behave in lock step would be awesome. In my living room a few seconds out of sync is usually not noticeable.
I did turn down the power of the antenna as someone recommended. Apparently, Zigbee has a tendency to “scream” loudly and that can corrupt other commands transiting the network. I just know it made it better.
