Grouping in Rooms/Things (v2 app)

Apps & Clients
1

The new app (2.0) seems to introduce a new classification of devices under a “Rooms” tab.
Rooms is identical to the “Groups” concept that has been there since the beginning (and is also still in the IDE). I have about 60 devices which I have already group under separate categories (like “motion sensors”, “lights”, etc). In the new app, these separate categories show up as rooms under the “Rooms” tab.

Is there any way to assign both a “group” and a “room” to a device?
This means:

  1. Under the “Rooms” tab, the devices are grouped under separate room folders
  2. Under the “Things” tab, the devices are grouped under separate “groups” folders (akin to v1.xx groups)
1 Like
2

Unfortunately not at this time, but I was just coming in here to say something similar.

One of the really powerful things in Amazon echo UI is that a device can be put into as many different groups as you want.

This allows you to have groups that represent rooms, groups that represent functions (like all lights), and groups that represent a particular use case.

For example, I have a group called “bedtime” which is a pathway of lights from the living room to my bedroom. So I can turn on bedtime when I’m ready to go to bed and turned it off again once I’m in bed.

One of the lights in those group which is a pathway of lights from the living room to my bedroom. So I can turn on bedtime when I’m ready to go to bed and turned it off again once I’m in bed.

Some of the lights in that group are also in a group called “bedroom” which means indeed all of the bedroom lights. But note that not every light in “bedroom” appears in “bedtime.” The bedtime group is the pathway and has only one or two lights in each of the rooms I go through.

Yet another group is “all lights” this is mostly used to turn on all lights if there’s a weird noise, but sometimes to turn off all lights for whatever reason.

I use this echo feature, the ability to assign the same device to multiple groups, all the time. It’s really helpful.

I would very much like to see smartthings add the same concept.

@alui

3 Likes
3

I vaguely remember that in v1.xx I used to be able to add a room to some devices (lights/switches), and they would show up in the Dashboard as a “Bedroom light” or a “Living room switch” …

4

That had nothing to do with rooms and if your devices are not showing up on the dashboard try deleting the device and re-adding it.

5

No issues with the new app so far.
But want to be able to group devices in folders both under Rooms and also under Things in the v2 app.

1 Like
6

Not a good idea. As discussed in other threads by SmartThings staff, the groups that you see on the dashboard now are leftovers from the previous version of the app. Once the last device from a group is removed, that group will be gone forever and you will not be able to get it back. There is no way to create these groups under the new version of the mobile app.

1 Like
7

This request is appearing in other threads and I’ve written about it many many many months ago … didn’t make it into the new App feature-set, sadly.

8

@Ben @Tyler @April Is there a feature request list that we can add this request to? Thanks.

1 Like
9

Dashboard should consist of monitor + old groups like Family etc.

10

I’m new to SmartThings (in the UK) as of today.

I’ve been tracking the progress of ST over recent months in the lead up to the UK launch and liked the groupings in dashboard.

Excuse my ignorance, but if these no longer go into dashboard, what will be in the giant space below Smart Home Monitor be utilised for??

11

There have been some comments in the forums by ST staff that there will be additional “solutions” created over the coming months, and that these will appear in the dashboard. But no details or timeline yet.

1 Like
12

Ah okay.

I’m very pleased that we finally have ST in the UK but it all feels very half-baked at the moment. Like they’ve really rushed out v2.

1 Like
13

Ah man, you should have been around before if you like undercooked cake… :grinning:

2 Likes
14

Is this asking for one button to turn off multiple lights ? If so, could you not just create a virtual switch and have it toggle the group of lights you want ?

1 Like
15

Think I understand what a lot of us is after. Under “My Home” you have “Rooms” but it would be nice to be able to group items in the rooms. Such as having a “Living Room” and under it have a “Lights” group, “Switches” group and so on…

1 Like
16

People want both. The ability to organize items in one room into subgroups, and the ability to collect items from multiple rooms into one group.

“Lights” is a perfect example. I might well want a subgroup under living room for the lights in that room. But I might also want a meta-group called “All lights” that included lights from multiple rooms. :sunglasses:

One of the things I like about Echo is that I can group devices anyway I want to, and a device can be in multiple groups.

1 Like
17

I have 5 Cree connected bulbs in my Kitchen. What I am looking for is a way to group them as one and be able to dim them all at the same time. One on/off and dimmer for all of them.Is this a pipe dream? I cant figure out how to do it.

18

I am looking for a way to do exactly what RonA said as well…

19

See the following how to article in the community-created wiki:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Group_Lights_Together

20

Hi. Replying to an old thread here, but I had hoped that by now this would be possible. I just moved from OpenHAB to try to SmartThings and thought that something like this would be table stakes. That, and the customization of the UI as a whole was something I figured would be at least in the works.