Groups vs Scenes for 1st Floor Lights

[klebel]

Hey All,

My old ISY had the concept of a "Scene". I would add all the first floor lights to that scene. Then in my program (event) I could have an action to all of them at once. It seems in Homeseer, if I want to take an action to all the lights on my first floor, I have to add them all individually to each event. Is that true or am I looking at this wrong? With Mark's plugin should I be making groups and then taking action on a group?

Here are a few things I am trying to do with the first floor lights:

"Alexa turn on Time for Bed"

1. Turns on the lights on the stairs going up to the second floor
2. Turns on bedroom lights and ceiling fan
3. Turns on master bath lights
4. Checks Schlage locks and garage doors (IO LINK) and locks and closes them if they are unlocked or open.
5. Turns off 1st floor lights after 5 minutes
6. Turns off 2nd floor lights after 10 minutes more minus the bedside light
7. Arms Alarm

I think I can figure out most of this, but when I play with a large grouping of lights they go on and off in series. I want then all to go on or off at the same time.

Thanks!

Kerry

[mnsandler]

yes, a group in my plugin is analogous to am insteon scene

[klebel]

yes, a group in my plugin is analogous to am insteon scene

Awesome. That is what I thought Mark. And there is no way to do this natively within HS right? If I wanted to do the same and include Zwave devices?

[mnsandler]

Groups generate Insteon links. HS. Can't do this natively. Not sure how zwave does it. It would be a plugin feature.

[logbuilder]

Mark,

I haven't messed with groups. When I do control large number of devices and I can see the serial processing.

Just played with groups with a scene I have never liked how it operated. It is my 'High Alert' scene. It flashes all the lights on and off several times and then leaves all the lights on. It is intended to be used at night to indicate a significant problem that everyone needs to be alert to. In the event I individually turn lights on and off with waits between. It was very eratic and took a long time to complete. It was a mess. Thus, I never moved it into production. Now using groups, each device in the group turns on at once and off all together. I have several other scenes that will benefit from groups.

Perfect. Thanks!