New to SmartThings and SharpTools. Only started using them today but have been using smartdevices for a few years now…
Anyways. The widgets within the Phillips HUE app itself seem to be very limited… Can’t seem to do individual lights… I think it has to be the full room. Which is fine as I have 3 buttons. One for ON, OFF, and then one for a specific ‘‘default’’ scene. I don’t think I’m even able to use custom scenes on the HUE widget. So it seems very limited unless I’m just not doing something right.
In SmartThings I seem to be able to control everything about the HUE lights which is nice. But I heard you need SharpTools to be able to make widgets for each thing.
I’ve got SharpTools set up but I don’t see any way to make a lighting group for my HUE lights so that I can control all lights with a toggle instead of having to press each one individually.
Anyone know?
I think there’s two way to do what you want:
(1) create a group in SmartThings, along with a “group” device that controls the group. Then, add that “group” device to sharp tools
(2) use Rule Machine in Sharptools to create rules to control the group
I would recommend (1) because then you can create other rules in SmartThings based on the group device.
That make sense?
Kind of makes sense but I’m new to this so not really sure how to go about it. I’m assuming when you say to create a group device in ST that you mean a virtual one? I’m not even sure how to do that. Don’t you need to know how to code for that?
No coding needing. In the ST app, click the “plus” in the upper right corner and add a Lighting Group.
I thought Lighting Groups could only be controlled manually within the SmartThings mobile app.
I’m not doing lighting groups in SmartThings anymore, but I thought Smart Lighting and Dim With Me were the go to choices along with a virtual device.
I also remember seeing a Hue B Smart integration that exposes Hue groups, but I haven’t used it and not sure if it’s still available.
I already had a lighting group made before posting.
You said to create a group in SmartThings (which I had done if you mean a lighting group) and then another group device that controls the group. That’s what I’m not getting. Where/what is a group device? I don’t see where to make one?
Anyone know? I already have a lighting group in SmartThings but the lights don’t show up in groups in SharpTools. They show up individually. I’d like them to show up in a group in SharpTools so I can make a widget to turn the group on/off.
Did you see my reply two posts up? Lighting groups only work in the SmartThings mobile app and only when you manually activate them.
They don’t work in automations, scenes, SharpTools, WebCoRE, etc.
I mentioned alternatives in my post above.