Trying to figure out basic automation

I'm brand new to Hubitat. I literally just started switching all my Smartthings junk to Hubitat. Anyway, one of original automations in ST was Movie Night. Not complicated I don't think, but it involves turning OFF two sets of light while at the same time turning ON two sets of lights. And I cannot figure out how to do that in Hubitat.

Many ways to accomplish this in Hubitat - is there a specific trigger for this action? You could use Groups and Scenes to have a "single switch" that sets all 4 lights to their desired states. Or Rule Machine (or maybe Simple Automations, but I mostly use Rule Machine for the flexibility it offers) can simply have all of these actions associated with it

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For what you describe, I would use Basic Rules (Simple Automations would work as well, but I prefer Basic Rules). Give it a try and let us know if you have questions or get stuck.

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I tried Simple Automations but I couldn't get it to turn on things AND turn off things in one action. I've actually created two actions using Rule Machine. One that turns on the movie lights and shuts off the living room lights. And the second that turns off the movie lights and turns the living room lights back on. Each of those work when I run the rule from w/in Hubitat. But I guess what's missing is the trigger. Back in Smartthings, it was just a button in the app that turned Movie Night On and another button that turned Movie Night Off.

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This is where Groups and Scenes comes in - specifically the "scenes" side - you can select all 4 lights to be part of it, and capture (and/or edit/define) the state for each one.

Then you can use the "activation switch" as a virtual device to turn the scene on/off

Or, you can just use the rules you've created, and a virtual switch (or button) devices that you manually create, can be plugged in as the trigger to run the rules

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Ah! I got it!

I think. I guess I missed something in the Basic Rules. But I created a virtual switch called Movie Switch. Then I created two Basic Rules. One that says when the Movie Switch is on, turn these lights on and these lights off. And one that says when the Movie Switch is off, turn these lights off and these lights on.

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I have to say that other than a couple hiccups (due to my own errors) Hubitat has exceeded my expectations. After my Smartthings setup crapped out I finally made the leap to Hubitat and despite the fact I've only used for the last couple of days, I find it WAY better.

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It's a learning curve, but once you're there it's pretty easy to do whatever you can dream up. I went straight to rule machine as it seems to be the most complex but also most rewarding app. Play with it some if you plan to do anything advanced.

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To help get your head around Hubitat, have a look at the tutorials on the YouTube channel.