Phillip hue lights grouping?

[teegray1124]

Hello brand-new to smarthings, please excuse my ignorance. I want to apologize if this has been posted before.

I have multiple recesses Phillip hue lights in my kitchen, I want to know how I can group them in smart things so it could just be one switch, I want to also add it to my smarttiles as a on and off switch for all four of them and as well add them as a dimmer too. Any help would be appreciated or direction. Thank you so much.

[JDRoberts]

SmartThings is very powerful, but not always intuitive.

Fortunately, the community – created wiki has an article for how to group lights together.

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

[teegray1124]

Thanks but how do I make a switch for them in my things tab?

[KC_703 (Kenneth C)]

The second part is to create a Virtual Dimmer.

So in the “Smart Lighting”, choose “Turn On & Set Level”. For the trigger select “Switch”, then choose the dimmer you just created.

EDIT - I just tried this with one of my Hue Bulbs… everything works except the Virtual Dimmer. It creates a button to control the group of lights, it only allows for on/off at the set dim level specified in the “Smart Lighting” automation. I’m sure there’s a way to do this… possibly through Trend Setter.

[OBSOLETE] Trend Setter

Trend Setter - A SmartApp for grouping devices Read First I am not usually one for releasing stuff I write because I am my own worst critic and usually self destruct before putting anything out into the general public (I’ve revised this post more times than I’d like to count). I am trying to change that behaviour… Although I am a software engineer by trade, I am not a Java/Groovy developer so I may not have written some of the code in the most efficient way. I expect this to change from feedback and as my knowledge grows. I tend to find I use the app to control a lot of things more than anything else so this is useful for that. I have only used this on an Android phone and can’t be sure how it’ll behave on an iOS device due to the parity issues between Android and iOS apps so give no g…

[teegray1124]

I figured that out now lol thanks, but virtual dimmer doesn’t work.

[JDRoberts]

@teegray1124

Thanks but how do I make a switch for them in my things tab?

If you just want to pick one light as the master light, you don’t have to do anything. Turning the master light on or off will also turn on or off all the other lights that are following it.

If You want to actually make a separate thing tile for the group, you can do that by using a virtual switch as the master.

That’s in the wiki article but it’s sort of buried because it’s in the section on how to put lights into more than one group.

FAQ: Creating a virtual Groovy Device [OBSOLETE]

Need a FAQ for the simplest version of this: a virtual on/off switch. Maybe even two FAQs, one for why you would want one with use case examples and one step by step how to for creating one in ST. Thanks! 2023 Update Since groovy will be going away soon, so will groovy virtual switches. See the new FAQ for on the replacements: FAQ: Creating Virtual Devices Without the IDE

As the wiki article explains, all of that just gives you the ability to turn the lights on and off. It also has links to smart apps which can do more, like have them dim together or even change colors are set scenes. That’s in the advanced features towards the end of the wiki article.