Selecting group of lights rather than singular?

Developer Programs Writing SmartApps
1

Hi,

When building a smart app, if you want to select lights, you have a section like this:

    section("Turn these light on") {
        input "switch1", "capability.switch", title: "Turn on...", required: true, multiple: true
    }

Is there an easier way to select lights that have been grouped; i.e. on my SmartThings iOS app dashboard I have “Lights and Switches” and all my lights in the Dining room are grouped to “Dining room”. I find it annoying that I have to select 12 lights individually each time I want an action of lights.

I use LiFX Bulbs with the following Types and App code; when sending a command to my lights it sends a command one by one; so to turn on 12 bulbs takes about 12 seconds; being able to send a single command to LiFX API for the group of bulbs would mean all bulbs in that group turn on at the same time.

https://github.com/zzarbi/smartthings/blob/master/app/lifx/lifx-connect2.groovy
https://github.com/zzarbi/smartthings/blob/master/device/lifx/lifx-bulb-2.groovy

Any help would be greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance.

Regards
Barry

1 Like
2

I am not sure if this will work or not, but you can try using an app named “The Big Switch”. What you would do is set one of the bulbs as the master switch and then the others as the Slave switches. When the one turns on, it will turn on the others. I haven’t tested this theory, and it’s very possible it’s just going to turn them on one by one just like the app you’re using. Are you sure the delay isn’t with the LiFX bulb or the WiFi connection they communicate through? If you turn them on manually do they instantly come one?