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Grouping of Parent/Child Devices - Enhancements

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    Grouping of Parent/Child Devices - Enhancements

    I have 2 issues regarding how Homeseer Mobile does grouping:

    1. HomeSeer Mobile shows parent and its child devices in the same group. For some devices, this is the desired behavior. For example, I have a number of Zooz ZEN15 devices. The ZEN15 plug device has child devices for its On/Off switch, as well as one child each for energy-related values such as kW Hours, Watts, Volts, and Amperes.

    Other examples where it makes sense to group the various child devices are: locks and thermostats.

    However, for some devices, it makes more sense not to group their child devices together. For example, the HSM200 sensor supports various child devices like temperature, sensor color, motion, and luminance. From a physical device perspective, yes, these devices all belong to the same physical device. But from an end user's perspective, it doesn't matter that they belong to the same physical device. Logically, the devices are not really related. HomeSeer Mobile shows these devices as grouped, so if one wanted to know the actual values of some of the child devices (like temperature, luminance, etc.), one would have to drill down and click on the root device to get the details on the child devices.

    It would be good if Homeseer Mobile were enhanced so there would be a way to selectively specify which devices (that have child devices) should or should not be grouped together.
    So, if one were to say "no grouping", then have their child devices show up in the same level as all other standalone devices. One possibility to do this is: if the root device's "Hide device from mobile views" is checked, but the child devices' "Hide device from mobile views" is NOT checked, then don't do the grouping. Just show the child devices in the same level as if they were standalone devices. The current behavior is: if the parent device's "Hide device from mobile views" is checked, then it and all its child devices are not displayed, (even if the "Hide device from mobile views" setting is for the child devices is NOT checked). This can cause confusion for folks thinking why aren't my child devices being displayed?


    2. Another grouping that I've done for HS3 web GUI as well as HS3Touch is to use the "Floor" grouping for certain functionality. In addition to floors like "Upstairs" and "Downstairs", I use floors for other special functionality. For example, I have floors named "Temperature" and "Batteries". I assign Temperature and Battery devices to these floors, but they are assigned to the actual room where they are located physically. This way, I can easily go to the "Temperature" Floor for all rooms, and see how temperature varies throughout the house. I can go to the "Batteries" floor and get a quick view of what batteries are running low. This method works with the HS3 web server GUI as well as HS3Touch. But with HomeSeer Mobile, if a device is assigned to a floor (such as Temperature), but the device is a child device, that device will NOT show up in the Homeseer Mobile view of that floor. It will only show up in the page where its root device belongs. I think Homeseer Mobile should be showing these devices if one were to select the proper floor (like Batteries) in all rooms. Maybe if the 1st issue (of not doing the grouping if not desired) is resolved, it will also resolve this second issue.

    I suppose for #2, I can create dashboards, but it's functionality that is already available with the HS3 Web GUI and HS3Touch so thought it may be straightforward to support with HomeSeer Mobile.

    For #1, being able to selectively choose what devices should be or should not be grouped would increase usability of Homeseer Mobile.


    So, a couple of considerations for potential enhancements...

    #2
    I found the groupings to be a pain in the *** too.

    I use double-switches everywhere why pay for a single switch when you can have a double for the same price? As most light switches are at doorways, and in most cases there is a light switch on both sides, I can wire a single double-switch directly to two different light switches in two different rooms at the same time.

    This means a single double-switch might have say a kitchen light and a laundry light. Works just fine in HomeSeer, but in HomeSeer mobile that's an epic disaster as it is all combined together.

    However, I did find you can add an item to dashboards multiple times - so I add it once, set the primary of the device to be the kitchen light and name it appropriately - then I add it again and set the laundry light to be the primary and likewise name it appropriately.

    Not ideal - as both switches are showing the power readings for example of everything combined.

    And that's just a simple example - I have a ZUNO for example that has many different totally unrelated devices, and HomeSeer mobile is mashing them all together. It's an utter mess

    I did bring this up during beta, but their explanation was that no other product lets you split different nodes into different rooms anyway. Interesting argument - given all of HomeSeer's competitors have forums filled with frustration that you can't split nodes across different rooms, so HomeSeer now considers one of its own product's advantages to not be relevant. Makes you worry about HS4.

    Also the fact that, by default, instead of showing all my light switches in all my rooms for example I had a screen appear full of 27 "Fibaro Double-Switches" and 14 "Aeotec SmartSwitches"... the most bizarrely unfriendly thing I have ever seen. Took many many hours to totally re-do in HomeSeer mobile what I already have set up in HomeSeer - that statement in itself says something

    But I did get there. Odd though that the on/off graphics on the devices page are waaaay cooler and more compact than that given on the dashboard page, and a dark mode would be fantastic as my entire kitchen and living room are being lit up something crazy at night by the white screen. Otherwise not bad for a 1.0 release.

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      #3
      Originally posted by Tillsy View Post
      I found the groupings to be a pain in the *** too.
      I have a ZUNO for example that has many different totally unrelated devices, and HomeSeer mobile is mashing them all together. It's an utter mess
      Yes, I don't like how logically unrelated devices are grouped together just because they are on the same physical device. There's many devices, such as the HSM200, which has motion, luminance, a night light, and temperature. I'd prefer that there be an option not to group the child devices but show the child devices as if they were standalone. Makes things easier to see from the room's main page w/o having to drill down by clicking on the root device. This is how HS3Touch and the HS3 Web server work. As I said, maybe one way to give the users the option to decide whether to group or not group child devices together is to look at the root (parent) device, and if the root device is hidden from mobile views but the child devices are not hidden, then show the child devices as if they were standalone devices.

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        #4
        Is there anyway to hide a complete Room from Mobile View?

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