Zooz switch "smart bulb mode", Pico remote, Hue Group (with two bulbs and a LED strip).
When I use the switch or Pico, everything works fine. If I turn the Hue Group on with Alexa, then they won't turn off from the switch/Pico. I have to press on on the switch/Pico then off works again. The converse happens if I turn off the Hue group with Alexa.
So this means that RL isn't getting the status update when the group is turned on or off by something not part of the RL rule.
I assume the "force" option should correct this but I'd rather fix why RL isn't aware of the lights status.
What are you using to integrate Hue in to HE (i.e. native integration, CoCoHue, or Advanced Hue)?
My guess is that it's just a polling delay with Hue... I think CCH defaults to a 1-minute polling interval, but I'm not sure what it is for the native and AH integrations.
If you just give it a minute or so, does the status eventually correct?
I moved lots my simple lighting tasks to RL last year; I'm usually 100% WebCore.
I have found over the past year that RL does not update the status of devices very well.
I will have failures to trigger when going into rooms only to find RL thinks the device is on which it isn't, I have to hit Update in the RL app. It all seems to stem from anyone turning off the light before RL has expired it's OFF timer. I often leave a room and turn the light off knowing it will be on for 5 minutes and I'm not coming back.
Moved these routines back to WC and all is fine if I manually turn a light off.
Force won't fix this issue. You need to add the Hue Group as a Means to Activate and as a Means to Turn Off. Room Lighting needs to know that the lights are on, so it turns on. Here is an example I use in my Kitchen:
I've got the my Kitchen lights as a Hue Group brought in via CoCoHue. When I turn on the group via Apple or Google Home, Room Lighting turns on. This allows my button toggle to turn off the lights even if they have been voice activated.
You don't have to go into the app and click update. Just press the on button on the switch so RL will now correctly know they're on, and then the off will work again.
A cleaner way to do this may be to use Room Lighting to create lighting scenes and Button Controller to manage button pushes (using the RL scene activator to turn on/off the scene). You'd also use the scene activator with Alexa.
The key thing is that Room Lighting always assumes it is in control. If you want to use the Means to Turn Off, you generally need to Turn On Room Lighting first. That is why adding the Hue Group as a Means to Activate/Turn Off helps.
The one exception to above is if you use select the option "Turn off even if already partially off". This will send an OFF command to Room Lighting even if it is already off and could work as well.
Edit: The other thing that would work is to create an Activator Device and share that device to Alexa rather than connecting Hue to Alexa. Alexa turns on the activator, it turns on the Room Lighting instance. Alexa turns off the activator, it turns off Room Lighting.