What is the best way to create an action that involves a lot of switches?

Devices & Integrations
1

I have 30 switches. If I went into each one to create actions, it would take forever. Is there a way to create one action with multiple switches? For example if I want all 30 switches to turn off when I leave my house and my status is set to Away.

2

Here’s how I’d do it:

  1. Setup a new Virtual On/Off Button tile in the IDE.
  2. Setup for this tile to turn off when you leave, and turn on when you come home.
  3. Setup the “The Big Switch” app (hit the +, scroll on the top to “more”, select “convenience”, then scroll down to find the app). Configure it so that your newly created on/off tile is the “master” switch. Then put all 30 of your switches in the “turn off, but not on” section.

Now, when you leave this button tile turn off… the SmartApp then see this switch turn off and all 30 switches turn off. When you come home this tile turn on, but the 30 switches do nothing. (NOTE: it’s important to turn this tile on when you come home other wise when you leave there won’t be a state change on the tile and therefore the SmartApp won’t fire.)

3

You can turn multiple switches on and off from “Hello Home” actions. There’re four pre-defined actions - “Good Morning!”, “Good Night!”, “Goodbye!” and “I’m Back!”, but you can add more if you wish. SmartThings actions work very much like scenes or “macros” in other automation systems. Actions can also change home “mode”.

4

Thanks for the reply. In response to chrisb, how do you do step 1?
In response to Geko, can you provide step-by-step instructions?

5

Here, I whipped up a quick PDF quide for doing this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dhf6scmeve0lq85/Virtual%20Device%20guide.pdf

Here’s the steps involved, but the guide and some nice pretty pictures.

  1. https://graph.api.smartthings.com/ You may have to sign up for developer access if you don’t already have it.
  2. After logging in, click on My Devices
  3. After selecting devices, click the New Device buton.
  4. Fill out the new device list as follows:
    Name: Whatever you want
    Label: Don’t need it.
    Zigbee ID: leave blank
    Device Network ID: This is a two digit hexadecimal. Make up a number here. I started with FF and then counted down for each new device (FE, FD, FC, FB, FA, F9, F8…)
    Type: Select On/Off Button Tile from the drop down list
    Version: Published
    Location: Pick from your list of locations
    Hub: Pick from your list of Hubs
    Group: Put it in one of your groups (folders) if you want.
  5. Click the Create Button.
6

This is great. Thanks so much!

7

RTFM! :smile:

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/sections/200174660-Having-Your-Home-Work-For-You