Is there anyway to assign groups of lights within the app?

I already know about smarttiles but I wanted to do it within the app.

Are you wanting to turn them on/off together or just visually organize then?

How would you do this in SmartTile (assuming you’re looking to turn them all on/off)?

There’s no elegant way to do it, but you can do it.

If you want to do it without using any custom code at all, use smart lighting and have all of the lights in the group except one follow the one you left out. That way it becomes the master switch and all of the others will go on or off as it Does.

If you’re willing to add a virtual switch, then you make the virtual switch the master and have whatever combination of other lights you want follow the virtual switch. That way you still have individual control over every switch. You can also use multiple virtual switches and have each one represent a particular grouping.

This method is straightforward, even if it’s not intuitive.

One caveat is that SmartThings at present will only allow you to have 100 devices of “capability.switch” so don’t go too crazy with virtual switches or you’ll run out of slots. :sunglasses:

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Yeah, you really can’t do it in smarttiles either but I wanted to dim/turn off maybe color change a whole group/room simultaneously.

Or pretty much any other home automation system. :wink:

Yeah, you would think they would get the hint…

They actually used to have this in the V1 app. Then it disappeared when the V 2 app was released in the fall of 2015. We were told that the functionality would be restored, but as yet it has not.

This is a screenshot from the old v one app, you can’t do this today:


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Did it allow you to color change and dim the group as a whole?

No color changes. I don’t remember about the dimming. At that time a lot of people used one of three or four community-created smart apps that all had slightly different features, including “Dim with me” and “Dim and dimmer.”

Here’s one discussion:

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I think the most current version is the following. This custom smartapp gives you a ton of group features, but it’s not just within the standard features as you originally requested. You would have to install this custom device handler and its smartapp.

( for those who might find this topic in the future but are not yet familiar with custom code, here’s the FAQ on that:

)

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Really great info! I just installed Dakota alert 2500 in the drive and wired the receiver to a z wave open closed sensor. It works great I’m going to use another motion sensor and z wave to monitor the front door and turn on the porch light…the mailman also has to use that path! I love this stuff!

You mean this too? I still think their icons are way too big, but I find Wink filling the gaps where ST lacks…

You could use “TrendSetter” for this:

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I find a simple virtual switch and Rule Machine work great…oh…wait…sorry…

The easiest solution is to create virtual switch and use it with Smart Lighting or Rule Machine if you have it. I’m using this method for five light groups that contain between 2-5 lights in each group. But really there’s not really a limit on the number in your groups. Another way to do it is use an Amazon Echo and set up groups within its settings. I’m using that method too…

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I do use the Amazon echo but I still haven’t got my remote in…It’s on backorder. How far does the remote work away from the echo? Sometimes it’s dodgy whether it hears me or not and it definitely doesn’t hear me in the garage. That’s why a simple button push would be great for rooms with several devices. I have aeon remotes for most rooms but those are sometimes hard to find when you have small children so my phone is usually always handy. Echo can also be whack sometimes. I changed it from Alexa to echo because it seems to hear that better. It’s also stupid that you can’t change the wake word to anything yo want.

my bad–I just checked and the Amazon remote is paired to The echo device via Bluetooth, not Wi-Fi. I was completely wrong on that. Which means you’ll need to be within Bluetooth range, around 50 feet.

Sorry for any confusion.

Sweet, I was hoping that! My router is on steroids!