Quick groupings?

Posted on
Mon Oct 26, 2015 10:10 pm
jfeger offline
Posts: 84
Joined: Jan 02, 2013

Quick groupings?

I've searched all over, without any success in finding this answer. I would be totally shocked if this hasn't been answered a million times, but my search skills have let me down. So I apologize in advance for asking this question

What is the most common way to handle scene/mode changes within the home? Im not new to Indigo, but have never had my system where I need it to be in terms of "good" automation. So far we have gotten by with basic Action Groups and using the touch client to manually cycle through devices we wanted to control. However, I have decided to really automate things, and take the system beyond a fancy remote control. :)

With that said, I haven't found a good way to create scenes efficiently. Ian example I am trying to solve:

1. Asume multiple lights are on in the kitchen, the family room, and surrounding rooms.
2. We want to "Read A Book", which typically happens in the same place in our family room, with the same three lights on
3. Id like to kill all of the kitchen lights, turn on the three family room lights

Ive accomplished this with Action Groups, and explicitly defined each step, such as: "Turn Off Kitchen Table Light", "Turn Off Under Cabinet Light", "Turn Off Main Kitchen", "Turn On Table Lamp" ... etc

Is there a more efficient way to do this, where I can essentially say "Turn off all kitchen"? Ive looked for a way to group all of the kitchen lights together and I must be dense ..because I haven't found the answer.

Also, how do most people design for house modes?

Thanks,
-j

Posted on
Tue Oct 27, 2015 8:09 am
jfeger offline
Posts: 84
Joined: Jan 02, 2013

Re: Quick groupings?

I know its not even 24 hours since my post, but I had a thought. *IF* this isnt able to be accomplished with the built-in Indigo functions, would I need to look at a script where I can trigger based on a name? For example, if I named all of my kitchen devices something like "Kitchen - Table Lamp", "Kitchen - Under Cabinet Lights", etc? Then I could match on the name using a wildcard. This seems overly complex, so I am still holding out hope for the "built-in" way. :)

Posted on
Tue Oct 27, 2015 10:16 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Quick groupings?

I'm not sure what other way you're looking for. There are a few different ways to create scenes:

  • Action Groups. Scenes, in and of themselves, aren't stateful. That is, a scene isn't either on or off, but rather is a set of states for a variety of devices. So, using that definition, an Action Group is definitely one way to create a scene - tell each device how to set itself.
  • If you're using Insteon, then you can use Insteon groups/scenes rather than an action group.
  • You can use a Device Group to create something like a scene that has an on/off state associated with it.

However, given your description, I think the way you're going it is the most straight-forward. Why would you think it's not a good solution?

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Tue Oct 27, 2015 10:46 am
howartp offline
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Joined: Jan 09, 2014
Location: West Yorkshire, UK

Re: Quick groupings?

A device group, as Jay suggests, would be the way I'd go if I was wanting to do something here, but for your example then you don't really need to.

I do have a Device Group for lots of my lights, called Evening/Xmas - every night at dusk the group turns on then when we go to bed it turns off.

But I also have an action called 'lounge lights off' that turns the lights off.


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Posted on
Tue Oct 27, 2015 5:48 pm
jfeger offline
Posts: 84
Joined: Jan 02, 2013

Re: Quick groupings?

Perhaps I need to look at Device Groups again. I looked at that last night, admittedly after a long day. and I couldn't get the behavior I was looking for.

Jay, to answer your question, using action groups and defining each function with a series of lights is tedious. Don't get me wrong, I love action groups, and use them often, but as I create a lot of "scenes", it feels like a lot of mouse-clicks/keystrokes of similar patterns. Again, perhaps I am looking at it wrong.

Ill take another look at Device Groups and see how that does.

Thanks,
James

Posted on
Tue Oct 27, 2015 8:30 pm
jfeger offline
Posts: 84
Joined: Jan 02, 2013

Re: Quick groupings?

Okay, I am back. I must have misunderstood some functionality, and I believe I am now able to make my Device Group work properly. What I was missing was the fact I needed to create the device group & save the state with the lights in the positions I want them to be in the "On" state when I turn the Device Group on. Last night when I was messing with it, I was only able to get the lights to turn off, and when I pressed "On", they wouldn't come on. I now realize that is because I was adding them to the Device Group while they were turned off. This totally makes sense to me.

Jay, I try to avoid the Insteon Scene setup because I am starting to run a mixed environment of Insteon, Z-Wave, and MySensors. I understand from the documents, this was one of the main drivers for you to introduce Virtual Devices.

Thanks again for helping me through this, I guess I should stop messing with things so late in the evening. :)

Posted on
Wed Oct 28, 2015 6:47 am
howartp offline
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Joined: Jan 09, 2014
Location: West Yorkshire, UK

Re: Quick groupings?

Well done for spotting and understanding the on/off issue - it's often a sticking point for new users and takes some explaining!

Petet


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Posted on
Wed Oct 28, 2015 9:19 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Quick groupings?

While doing your initial install and tweaking, action groups may seem like a lot of clicks/configuration. But once your system becomes more stable, the majority of users find that the amount of tweaking goes down significantly. And, frankly, I'm not sure of any better way of accomplishing it anyway - scene management is inherently about adding/removing devices (and their settings) which in turn is going to require some work by the user.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Wed Oct 28, 2015 8:01 pm
jfeger offline
Posts: 84
Joined: Jan 02, 2013

Re: Quick groupings?

jay (support) wrote:
While doing your initial install and tweaking, action groups may seem like a lot of clicks/configuration. But once your system becomes more stable, the majority of users find that the amount of tweaking goes down significantly. And, frankly, I'm not sure of any better way of accomplishing it anyway - scene management is inherently about adding/removing devices (and their settings) which in turn is going to require some work by the user.


@jay I dont disagree at all. Please dont take my comments as a negative, its mostly me not fully understanding and being lazy. :) Ive been an Indigo Pro user for several years now and I recommend it to anyone that will listen. I think I am past my original issue at this point and moving forward.

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