Room Lighting Question: FORCE vs On/Off even if Partially On/Off

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#1

I’m reading through the Room Lighting documentation and I’m super excited with the possibilities. I had a question how these two options are different. To me, they sound like they would (or at least should) do the same thing.

Allow devices on/off irrespective of reported state
If the Force box is checked for a device, that device will be Activated or Turned Off irrespective of its reported state.

Activate even if already partially Activated / Turn Off even if already partially Off
Room Lights ordinarily will not Activate the lights if it believes they are already Activated. For some circumstances, particularly where some of the automated lights are turned off independently, it may be desirable for all of them to be turned on when the Means to Activate events occur. This option causes this to happen.

In my mind, I envision the FORCE option to Activate regardless of whether its state is On, Off, or Partial thereby doing the same thing as the “partial” options.

#2

Force commands the device irrespective of its reported state. This would be useful for devices that don't reliably report their state. Activate or Turn Off Even If options have to do with multiple lights, where as an example perhaps not all are on or off, but the app should Activate or Turn Off anyway. Without Force, the app won't command a device that is already in the desired state to reduce mesh traffic.

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#3

Yes what @bravenel said. For example I use the "Activate even if already partially Activated / Turn Off even if already partially Off" options in most of my RL setups. All of my devices are reliable with reporting the current state back to the hub so this works great. I do not need to use the Force option at all.

If you have any old non-plus zwave devices or other devices that need to be polled, then perhaps the Force option would be better for those since you may not always know the current state.

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#4

@jtp10181 @bravenel Thank you for explaining the use cases. It looks like what I need are the "partially" options.

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