Support for reflecting dimmer level of devices in group

Just like it sounds. I can turn on a group of lights and the group device doesn't show the level the bulbs are at. It would be great if there was a switch to enable reflecting the average or predominant dimmer level of the devices in the group.

The dimming level of the group device is used to CONTROL the dimming level of the devices in the group. So, used properly, they will always match. What you are asking for would end up making all of the dimmers in the group the same level. If you are going to do that, just control the group device instead of the individual ones.

And if you only want several dimmers to all match each other, look at the Mirror Me app instead of Groups.

That said, if you are controlling the devices separately, and not controlling the group device, maybe having them in a group isn't really going to accomplish what you want.

Well, they are zigbee bulbs, and the group device doesn't provide a means of ramping up or down the dim level using a button controller. They must be dimmed up or down by addressing individual bulbs, but I use the group for zigbee group messaging to avoid "popcorn" with off/on or CT/Color changes. It seems that it should be possible to get the dimmer level for the group updated since it is getting updates for on/off status of group members. I really only want it for groups of lights that are controlled by the same switch, doing everything in unison. I have tried to work around this, but the result was a lot of extra zigbee traffic and lag. @bravenel is this a possibility? The group device having the incorrect dimmer level also seems to cause issues with turning a group of lights back on to the previous level. They function perfectly individually and I have no issues with individual lights coming back on at the level they were, or reporting the correct level and status.

Ramping up/down on the group device doesn't work, as you know. But setting the dimmer level of the group device does work, and will dim all of the bulbs. So I don't follow what it is you can't do. Having said that, what @Ryan780 said above is correct.

It would be possible for the group device level to be set to a member device level in the sole circumstance that every member device is set to the same level. I will look into that.

I understand what you’re saying, and I often use the group device to set levels for the group, but when ramping bulbs up or down, which takes fewer buttons to accommodate a wide range of levels, it would be nice if the group device showed the change. I really appreciate you looking into this.

Thanks! That would be perfect.

Is there some reason that you cannot just set the group device level after you've set the members' levels? With on/off optimization enabled in the app, this would do nothing other than set the group device's level. It seems unnecessary to add this to the app, and doing so creates some overhead in the app that isn't really of benefit otherwise.

We use dimmers (Button controllers) for all of the lights in the house for on/off and dimming (ramping up or down). I’m not aware of how I would set the level of the group device after adjusting the dim level of the bulbs, because only the bulb knows this, and mirroring its level to the group would be the only way to accomplish this it seems. I want to be able to set the lights with the group device, especially because of also using Alexa, but also want the group device to report if I change the level of the members. I figured since the group was already reporting if a member was on or off, it wouldn’t be much to have it also report one of the members level. I’ve tried just increasing or decreasing 10 or 20% with each button push, but it was tedious to use, and unless I also sent the command to every light in the group, I ran into issues when lights were turned off and on. We have a lot of ceiling fans with 4 bulbs each, and one fixture in the dining room with 9 bulbs. I use groups because I want the bulbs to do the exact same thing in unison. Would it be possible to have a group device for bulbs only, without dimmers and switches, that might make the overhead less of an issue, or does that not have an impact?

OK, understood.

This feature will be added for the next release. Note that the option for "Use group device to indicate if any members are on" must be selected. The indicator will be on if any member devices are on, and will be at the members' level if all members are at the same level. If all members are not at the same level, the group device level will remain at whatever its last value was. If all of the members are set to level 0, that may not change the group device level, although it would be off (some devices do not report level 0, and only report off in response to the level being set to 0).

You are the man! Btw, currently if I set lights to 0, they turn off and report 0 and off on the device page, but usually the group device says 0 and on. Are you saying that in the future the group device will keep the previous level, and show “off”, because that would also be a great feature.

Have you tried it with that option set?

I thought the OP was talking about the ZigBee message "start raising" "start lowering" and "stop changing"? As this is not a current feature in the group app so you have to have a group device for on off set level commands but then need to break the lamps down for Doing the dimming. I would love the group version of this message to be added if only ZigBee lamps are selected in the group. :pray:

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Yes. I couldn’t see any difference. It is currently on. It seems like there was a difference if zigbee group messaging was turned off, but that defeated the point of using the group device.

Of course. But that sounded like it wasn’t an option currently.

Do you know if after doing your dimmer adjustments that all of the group member devices are actually at the exact same level? This feature would only work if that is true.

I have not noticed them being at different levels since early on when I had a lot of the older Osram bulbs, which have all been replaced with the newer ones now. I will test them out tonight and make sure the levels match on the device page just to be sure and then report back. I’d be willing to test this change ahead of release if you want me to as well. I have eight different zigbee light groups I would like to use it for.

It occurs to me that there is one other possible way this could work: The group device level could simply always be set to the last member device level set. This would cover the case where they were all being set to the same level. But suppose, that in raising / lowering the devices, they were to end up off by 1 or 2 in the level. That wouldn't matter, the group device level would be close by virtue of being set to the last member device level.

Whether or not this would be a problem would depend on user expectations. Clearly, your expectations / needs would be satisfied by this approach. At the same time, I suspect the off-by-one issue could be a fly in the ointment for you with the design requiring all members to have identical device levels. The only oddball case would be where one member device's level is changed, and then the entire group turned off. When turned back on (by On, as opposed to by setLevel), it would come on to that last device level.

Is this going to create a lot more overhead for those of us using groups the way it was originally designed? If so, I'll figure something else out. But there are a lot of us using groups and like the way that they work. I love new functionality but not at the expense of response time. Groups are already slow to respond as it is.

This is one of the main things I have been trying to accomplish, without a ton of extra zigbee traffic and complicated rules. I have tried to do this with rules and it was just too complicated to work well.

Actually, no. There are three types of overhead for this app.

  1. The UI is slow due to the manner in which devices are selected. This will be fixed in the next release.
  2. There is the activation execution time. This is unavoidable and is the time it takes to respond to the invoking change to the group device, and from that to activation of the member devices. There are some improvement possible in this area for non-Zigbee devices, those that cannot use Zigbee group commands. These improvements will be in the next release. I'll be very interested in feedback as to responsiveness.
  3. There are actions taken as a consequence of changes to the member devices states. This overhead happens after the fact, after the devices themselves are activated as in 2 above. Using the group device as an indicator falls into this category. The overhead of this type does not burden the timing of device activation.

Having said that, the amount of work done in managing the group device state consequent to changes of the member devices states is small. It would be even less if the alternate method of updating the group device level is used -- that it merely reflect the most recently level set to a member device.

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Thank you for the explanation. Just wanted to check. I'd hate to see a "1 step forward, steps back" type situation. Thank you!