Device Data vs Attributes vs State?

[tgauchat (ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)]

@tapheli

Is it even possible to have these individual items be visible as a selection item to any other general Smartthings app?

Currently a single SmartThings Device Instance can only claim a single instance of any particular “Capability”.

In other words, if your single DTH is: swtich, switch1, switch2 … Standard SmartApps will only see the first “switch”. There is no Capability called “Switch2” (etc.). SmartThings does not support handling of multiple attribute instances within the same DTH.

###The Solution?
The standard solution is to spawn virtual/child Devices (with a synchronizing Device Manager SmartApp), one for each switch channel in the real Device.

Philips Hue is one example of this, but there are many more… multi-channel Quirky or Aeon power-bar I think?

And I’ve written this answer a few times before!

LAN device with multiple on/off toggles?

There’s a DTH for Aeon or perhaps (Quirky?) power strip that is a good example. You have to create a service manager with a main device (on1, on2, …) and a set of child Device instances. Capability Switch only supports on/off … with no options to specify which sub-switch … so you need individual instances in order to be conforming. ###Update: Here is the code for the Aeon Powerstrip; but it does not automatically create child Device instances … you have to create Virtual Switches manually. There may be some newer examples (and LAN related), but this gets the concept across for a start. https://github.com/notoriousbdg/SmartThings.Aeon-Labs-Smart-Strip BTW: A good LAN example is probably Philips Hue. It’s Service Manager (“Connect”) SmartApp spawns a device for every lightbulb linked …