I have recently purchased a Homey and I am now setting up all my lamps in the house. I noticed when switching on/off multiple specific lamps in a flow, it will turn them on/off one by one. This is very noticeable, especially when for example the kitchen consists of 10 Hue GU10 spots.
This happens when using a card per lamp to turn it on/off using the Hue Zigbee app
This also happens when using a card per lamp to turn it on/off using the Hue app (so it is still using the hue bridge).
This also happens when using one card to switch on all lamps in a zone regardless if those lamps are connected through Hue Zigbee or Hue app using bridge.
This does NOT happen when using one card for Hue app that turns on/off a group/room in the hue bridge. In this case ALL lights will go on at once at the exact same time.
I also tried all this with using a delay of 1 sec, but without any luck.
Now my questions are:
Is there any way to not use the Hue app/bridge to switch all lights on/off at the exact same time? Ideally I would like to get rid of the hue bridge and set everything up only in Homey. If not possible, then I would have to put all my lamps in the hue bridge and all my sensors and remotes directly in Homey (otherwise the polling time would be really annoying).
Would it be possible to achieve this via HomeyScript? I have a programming background, but I have no experience with HomeyScript. I guess scripting lamps to go on/off sequential will give the same one by one effect. Is there any command that can turn on/off all lamps in a room at once?
I think somehow the Hue bridge is capable of sending out zigbee signals to all lamps at once (or each lamp directly), while Homey sends out zigbee signals sequential, resulting in the one by one effect. Or would it be due to one signal and then relying on the Zigbee mesh network? (I don’t know if that even makes sense). IMHO the hue bridge does a better job at this.
Anybody who has overcome this issue? I believe it is an annoying effect when switching on/off rooms with lots of lamps, especially my kitchen and living room.
I think you wont be able to solve this. At least not with Homey. I had Fibaro HC2 and there was also delay when you wanted to switch ON/OFF all lights at once. Yes, in Homey, the delay is much more noticeable.
So basically the Hue Bridge is doing a very good job then… Is it due to software? Or hardware that causes this issue?
I hope software. In that case Athom might be able to fix it. When comparing the price of a Homey and a Hue bridge you would expect the hardware te be no issue.
This is most likely caused by either the hue app or might be a limitation of the hue api.
I run LIFX lights and can confirm it is not a limitation of Homey itself.
Not really, because he states it also happens with the Hue Zigbee app, in which case there’s no Hue bridge/API at all.
The problem is two-fold:
Homey has problems executing multiple action cards at once, especially when those cards involve switching Zigbee or Z-Wave devices (that’s why you’ll see people using workarounds like adding delays)
Homey doesn’t support Zigbee grouping, where you can add multiple Zigbee devices to a single Zigbee group (which allows you to switch all of those devices using a single Zigbee command).
Because the Hue bridge does support grouping, it works when you switch an entire group using the Hue bridge app.
I Think Roberts explenation about Zigbee Grouping makes most sense. I’m not complaining about the price of the Homey, I understand there is a lot more to it than the Hue bridge, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought it. Although, the lack of zigbee grouping, which probably causes this issue, is a bit of downer, not major, but still.
I had similar issues like this. For me this workaround worked:
Keep using hue bridge (I know it wasn’t my first choice either) with the homey hue app and use hue scenes. When you recall scenes with homey your lights will response all at once. Hope this works for you.
Yes, there’s currently only one solution for it and that’s keep using the bridge. And that is also a solution for a lot of other issues that I experience with Homey’s Zigbee. Like slow response, not responding to a sensors etc. However, I understood that there is a Zigbee rewrite in progress? I’m very much looking forward to that. Perhaps they can support grouping to tackle this issue as well.
Since I’m very sensitive to lag / latency regarding Home automation I’m Interested in the possible Zigbee rewrite.
I also prefer only using Homey as my main home automation device.
So fingers crossed.
I’m Interested in the possible Zigbee rewrite.