I love the new Groups feature and I think that with some improvements it could be a game changer for Homey App:
Improving capabilities management
Now once a Group is created, the main page of the Group only allows you to manage the capabilities in common to all devices belonging to the group (ie on/off) and once a capability is activated by the Group, it’s applied to all group devices (ie all the light bulbs in the Group are turned on or off).
It would be interesting to be able to customize this operation from the advanced settings page of the Group: a list could appear with all the capabilities of the devices that are part of the group and each capability will have a drop-down menu by which the user should be able to choose whether the activation applies to all devices (ie switch on ALL sub-devices) or only to some of them (ie switch on ONLY device 1 OR device 2 OR …).
In this way, the Group view will have all the capabilities of the sub-devices and not just the common ones. For each capability the user would have the possibility to choose whether to apply it to all the sub-devices or only to one of them.
For example, I created a group with a switch and a light bulb and every time I turn off the group if the switch is turned off before the light bulb I get an error because the light bulb, without power, cannot turn off. I would like to be able to associate the on/off capabilities of the Group only to the switch so that the light bulb always remains on.
Groups for smart plugs
Now smart plugs can be grouped even if I have not understood what other types of devices I can combine them with. It would be useful to be able to combine them with an appliance (for example a washing machine or a television) so as to have a single grouped device with the possibility, for example, of having energy consumption, a capability present in many smart plugs.
Groups for remote control (buttons)
The buttons for remote control are often associated with other devices (ie lights). It would also be useful to be able to create a group for this type of device (ie with smart light bulbs).
Groups for (binary) sensors
Create groups from (binary) sensors. Things like “all motion sensors in the garden” (so trigger an alert if any of them detects motion) or “all sensors that should be closed when we go to sleep” (eg alert if there’s still a window/door/lock/sunscreen open when we go to sleep).
Hi Peter, I remember that passage from the podcast well.
The real advantage of having a native groups feature is that you don’t have a duplication of devices (the grouped devices disappear from the list). If you don’t consider this aspect, the groups app is more than complete and already does much more than what the native feature offers.
This is why I hope for the improvements mentioned above, which are also related to rather common cases.
I was able to group my curtains (and lights). But I cannot group the (Somfy) screens. Apparently the group feature is limited to curtain-devices instead of window coverings in grneral?
Or did anyone succeed in grouping window coverings other than curt
As an alternative you can try the < Group > app, which supports more advanced grouping.
I believe Athom indicated that the native grouping functionality is limited to lights and switches; the most commonly grouped items, though I also have the option to group curtains (haven’t tried it).
The grouping functionality apparently also has position/up/down/tilt options, so would expect that it could also work with screens. Maybe screens have a different device type compared to curtains.
One thing the grouping feature is missing for me is the duration for the ‘dim’ action cards on light groups. I still need to select each light individually to gracefully dim the light to a certain percentage, the group doesn’t have the duration option.
Certainly not all lights have the duration option available. You just picked the right ones apparently
But I agree, when each of the grouped lights have the duration option available, it should be available to the grouped light as well…
They should take a look at other, more flexible, platforms, where you can also create groups from (binary) sensors, which I use a lot. Things like “all motion sensors in the garden” (so trigger an alert if any of them detects motion) or “all sensors that should be closed when we go to sleep” (which I use to alert me if there’s still a window/door/lock/sunscreen open when we go to sleep).
Feels like they missed an opportunity to create a feature that’s really flexible, for instance also allowing any device with an onoff capability into a group. And I’m also not sure if “95% of users” wants to have their groups limited to a zone.
I suspect it’s the same as with certain other apps / integrations by Athom: only to be able to say “Yes it’s there”;
only as soon as some basic things are functioning, they seem to stop spending any more time on it.
It becomes painfully clear when you compare those with the extended functionality of community apps for same brands or functions.
Hello, ik grouped my curtains. Great function. But when i look in google home it now shows 3 devices. 1 curtain left 1 curtain right and curtains the grouped one. Do i do something wrong?
I used the community Group app before and had some issues (not dimming similar etc). I now have deleted the app and using native Groups, my findings
Works great when dimming, switching, changing color of my 2 ceiling lamps and 2 dining lamps. Also have 2 Ikea curtains in a Group which also works fine. The thing missing is change over time (which is possible with single lamps), I now use them separate for each lamp. (ie. dim to 50% in 15 minutes or change to temperature xx in 10 min). This is a great feature, however not implemented in native Groups or Community Groups.
This is such a basic functionality, my google nest hub works fine when I say turn on/off lights but the group I created for my remote works for a while and then suddenly 1 light stops working and I have to use the voice command with google to turn it off. Individually clicking the light in the homey app works fine too.
That’s a Homey bug, not an app bug. Homey is just unable to reliably control multiple devices at once. This is an issue that has existed for many years now.
I believe the app has some options to mitigate this issue, by using a small delay in between each device command.
Almost correct. It’s only available for certain single lamps (Hue, Ikea f.i.)
Not sure if the group does provide for the so called “duration” option when all grouped lights have that option as well.
