How best to handle many lights (over 30)

Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 6:20 am
norcoscia offline
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How best to handle many lights (over 30)

I want to set up something that will indicate ON if any of the lights in my house are on and OFF only when all the lights are off - not sure if that would be better as a virtual device or variable.

I was thinking about setting up a condition that was - - if ALL of the lights are off - then change viable or device to off.

and also have one that was set up like - - if ANY of the lights are on - then change the variable or device to on.

Questions are:

Any issues / problems with that approach?

Which is better - variable or virtual device?

What are others doing?

Thx in advance for any help!

PS. they are a mix of ZWAVE and INSTEON devices.

_______
Norm

Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 6:42 am
howartp offline
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Re: How best to handle many lights (over 30)

A virtual device is exactly what you want here.


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Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 7:43 am
norcoscia offline
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Re: How best to handle many lights (over 30)

This is turning out to be problematic - I set up the rules but don't want the triggers to both run every second - not really sure how best to handle this w/o 200 steps or schedules that runs every second to check :-(

Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!

_______
Norm

Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 8:14 am
FlyingDiver offline
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Re: How best to handle many lights (over 30)

First question - what are you using this for? Logic in some other schedule/trigger? Or on a control page as a status indicator?

You've got three choices:

1. Set up a schedule that keeps the variable up to date,
2. Do the update on demand when needed.
3. Put a trigger on each device that you're monitoring and have it update the status variable real time.

joe (aka FlyingDiver)
my plugins: http://forums.indigodomo.com/viewforum.php?f=177

Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 8:23 am
howartp offline
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Re: How best to handle many lights (over 30)

One or all of us is confused.

I agree with FD’s first paragraph, but not his 123’s. But nor do i understand Norm’s 200 steps.

Explain your situation then we might understand each other’s misunderstandings.


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Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 8:31 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: How best to handle many lights (over 30)

A Device Group Virtual Device is exactly what you want (it offers the ANY or ALL options as part of the config). No scripting/scheduling necessary.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 8:34 am
norcoscia offline
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Re: How best to handle many lights (over 30)

I'll try - I have a ton of lights. I made a control page that displays all of them. On that page I can turn them on or off and see status in real time since they are on/off devices.

On my master control page I don't have enough room for 30 plus items so I made one item that I can look at on the way out of my house and know if a light is on. I want to have that one device on the master control page turn on if ANY light is on in my house or OFF if all light are off. Then I can jump to the control page for lights and turn off anything I may have left on by mistake.

So I created a virtual device, set the action group to no operation actions, set it to monitor a variable to change state.

Then I created trigger that has every light in it and it will change the variable if any light is on

and a second trigger to turn off the variable if all lights are off

The 200 steps would be to go into each device and have it run the check every time a light changes state - otherwise I will need to have a schedule run every second or two to check status.

Neither option seems like fun and involves a ton of steps I will forget by next month and then have problems when I change or add stuff.

Wondering if there is an easy way to do this that is less complicated?

_______
Norm

Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 8:35 am
norcoscia offline
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Re: How best to handle many lights (over 30)

What is a device group virtual device - is that different than a virtual device?

Crap, never mind I forgot about that one - sigh - that is 3 hours I will not be getting back :-)

_______
Norm

Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 8:38 am
howartp offline
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Re: How best to handle many lights (over 30)

Ah, your using my variable device plugin?

Yes there’s a built in, but disabled, virtual device group device plugin thing.


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Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 8:41 am
norcoscia offline
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Re: How best to handle many lights (over 30)

So much unused space and hundreds of things in the list, head hanging down.....
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_______
Norm

Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 9:01 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: How best to handle many lights (over 30)

norcoscia wrote:
What is a device group virtual device - is that different than a virtual device?


Device Groups (link for completeness).

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Wed May 15, 2019 9:15 am
norcoscia offline
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Re: How best to handle many lights (over 30)

Thanks -- all working now - I blame old age and lack of sleep for my bad memory - might be other contributing factors, but I can't remember :-)

_______
Norm

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