I’ve used the Groups app to add the lights i want to switch.
You can configure the Groups icon to light up when one or more lights in the group are on.
Turning off the group means that it turns off only the lights that are on. It’s faster.
You could first turn off the group, wait a few seconds and then do the rest of your flow.
It’s less work, allows you to speed up actions if you first check if the group is on or off before taking the next action.
I’m not sure how the Groups app does the actual switching, but it seems like it works sequentially. In any case you do not have to worry when you use a mix of technologies (Hue, Fibaro, etc) with different response times.
I understand the complexity that this thing could get. And for sure it is not very important for many users. On the other hand, I think that users who spend so much money and buy Homey Pro have more demands on certain functionalities, even if it doesn’t have to go to the level of script programming. But these users want to do more than with a normal Philips Hue system or Ikea Tradfri.
The solution to this problem may not be as complex as described here. If there was, for example, a card that gives the system a waiting time, then my problem would already be solved.
e.g:
switch off all lamps
wait 5 seconds
switch on lamp X
switch on lamp Y
…
But unfortunately this would not work again, because we have the problem of non-chronological executing cards again…
This is a big issue I struggle with as well! In flows with a lot of cards I often have lost commands, even though it’s not a connection issue with lamps, as those lights are just a few meters away from Homey.
So the issue seems to be in the way how Homey is dealing with commands.
It’s a good workaround for the “switch many devices at once” issue.
And by tuning the delay time to the smallest working value, one can switch many devices “at once”, with a slight delay.
Start the next card with a delay, or, if you dot not want delay or delay varies to much… create a new flow starting with “when variable has changed” the. You are sure it never misses the trigger
The problem is that even in standard flows lights are not turning on paralelly. For example 9 bulbs in the same light turn on piece b piece during 5 seconds or more.
If actions placed in series will be executed in series will depend on how apps have implemented the action cards as well. If they do not wait for async calls internally because cards used to run in parallel anyway, it will remain async.
Surely Athom is aware of the long-standing issue with Homey that people have to use delays in between cards to get their lights to turn on at all, if they have multiple action cards in a flow??
