I bought some Sengled bulbs and grouped them using Smartthings Lighting Groups (trying to wean off of Smart Life with virtual devices and IFTTT)
I had anticipated that I would just be able to add the Lighting Group to my dashboard and control both Patio Lights (Patio1 and Patio2) using a single tile, however I don’t see a direct way of doing that.
I could just add Patio1, rename it to Patio Lights and then use a rule to turn Patio 2 off and on but that seems clumsy when Smartthings already has a mechanism designed for this purpose.
If you are referring to the new Lighting Groups feature added to the new Samsung SmartThings mobile app in early June, SmartThings has not exposed an API for it yet. For that matter, Lighting Groups can’t even be used in other SmartThings features like rules or scenes yet!
We’ve had some discussion with the SmartThings engineering teams and it’s on their list to expose control of lighting groups via scenes, rules, and ultimately via API calls as well. That being said, it sounds like there is a platform gap for subscribing to lighting group events for status updates - it’s just not possible at all today.
Basically, they’ve only exposed Lighting Groups for manual control via the mobile app. There are plans to add support for automating control of the lighting groups, but the ability to properly track events/state of lighting groups doesn’t have a clear roadmap plan from SmartThings.
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In the meantime, the recommended approach would be to use a Virtual Switch for controlling the lights. You could then create a Smart Lighting automation to turn Patio 1 and Patio 2 on/off whenever the virtual switch is turned on/off.
Note: As long as both of your patio lights can run local, since virtual switches and Smart Lighting both run local on SmartThings, the virtual switch could then be used in any other local automations.
Thanks for the info Josh. Being relatively new to Smartthings I had not realized how new the Lighting Groups feature was. I’ll use a workaround for now.
In the new Samsung SmartThings mobile app, you can find Smart Lighting by clicking the button at the top of the main screen, select SmartApp, then select Smart Lighting.
Fair warning that the SmartApps screen in the new SmartThings mobile app has been really quirky for people lately. Sometimes not showing SmartApps at all or not letting you tap on a SmartApp.
Virtual Switches
Unfortunately, SmartThings has not exposed an interface for creating virtual switches in the new mobile app yet. You can create them manually in the SmartThings IDE though.
Hi! Has there been any update on this? This is pretty much exactly what I would like to use. A lighting group that behaves like a single device. If one device in the groups is switched on separately, the group shows as ‘on’. If all devices in the group are switched off, the group is off. If the group is toggled to on, every device in the group is toggled on if it is not yet. If the group is toggled off, every single device is toggled off is it isn’t yet.
I have been able to build some logic in sharptools that achieves the same thing but it’s unnecessary complicated. To top it all off I am considering a virtual smart bulb in smartthings to simulate this same behavior because that would allow me to easily use the light bulb tile including glow effect. It would be much more elegant to simply import and access the smartthings lighting group.
Hi @josh
I’m a new user and really enjoy the platform so far!
I, too, am struggling with the lighting group issue.
If it was mere on/off toggle I’d create a tile that toggles a scene.
However, I’m looking for an option to control the light intensity and hue with sliders.
I thought that the smart tiles feature might come handy here but couldn’t yet figure out how.
Any ideas or suggestions on this matter?
Thanks
button at the top of the main screen, select SmartApp, then select Smart Lighting.
Fair warning that the SmartApps screen in the new SmartThings mobile app has been really quirky for people lately. Sometimes not showing SmartApps at all or not letting you tap on a SmartApp.