2020-03-27: Adding additional duration options for Notifications. Also adding the commands startNotification(value) and stopNotification() to be used in apps like WebCoRE or Rule Machine to directly control notifications instead of through child Devices. To determine “value”: Inovelli Switch Toolbox
Most of my rules send notifications to multiple switches around the house. In order to limit errors in complex rules and to avoid having to re-modify rules to add or remove various switches, I’ve made “LED notification” groups with each relevant Child Device “switch” added. This allows me to leave a rule intact while adding or removing switches within groups. This can get messy when keeping up to 5 different notifications per switch with 4 variables each (color, level, duration, and type).
My question: can this new notification command be used on a group? At present, grouping dimmers doesn’t allow access to the new custom commands. I can only seem to access them when selecting devices individually.
If this can use groups of dimmers, this is VERY appealing as it can both simplify the need to manage multiple child devices and allow granular modification of notifications via the “value”.
This is interesting and I’d actually like to know the answer too! A follow up question here for anyone that answers - would it be possible to clear group notifications via one switch?
A possible use case would be:
Garage door is left open after 10pm = All switches flash red
When you manually clear one switch (ie: double tap the config button) it clears all switches.
I think in theory this is possible, but I haven’t had a chance to set this up on my own setup, let alone Hubitat.
@Nope I haven’t until now seen a use for groups. I am wondering if group level commands are inherited from the individual devices driver or if these are defined by Hubitat? Based on what I am seeing, I am guessing the latter…
If that’s the case, It would be a cool feature for the “Group” functionality to inherit common commands/attributes from the group. i.e. All “like” commands are inherited by the group, “unlike” ones are not.
I believe the answer to your question is yes, You could definitely do this using a scene and a simple rule in RM.
However, in your example, double tapping the config button is not currently registered/recognized in HE. I am not sure if this is a Driver and/or a FW dependency. I bet @EricM_Inovelli could answer this one.
Lol dang, I’m falling apart the last few days. Someone send a wellness check!
I guess what I was thinking was that the double-tap on the config button is what you have to do to clear the notification. While it doesn’t register, I was wondering if, when you do it, the child device turns off and thus a rule could be made that if the child device is off, the rest go off.
The group device driver is handled on the Hubitat side and it’s commands / capabilities are used for the group.
That being said, can’t you select multiple devices to send the custom command to in Rule Machine? Since you are creating the rule anyway, it is only slightly less convenient to select the additional devices.
I can’t help with the wellness check. How bout a hug instead??? Observing good social distancing of course…
Okay, so I had to test this to confirm it. When clearing the notification by double-tapping the config button, the child device does not turn off. This is the case in the new (beta) and original firmware.
Yup!, that is how I am doing this now… As I add more dimmers and switches, the rules become more and more unruly. It’s only going to get worse. Additionally, if I remove a switch from the network that is used in a rule, I end up with a broken action(s). I “think” when using groups, if you remove a switch, it just removes the switch from the group as well. But I need to test that to confirm. Maybe this weekend.
So while I can’t use the start and stop notification commands on groups, I have figured I can group the Notification children.
Grouping notification children is exactly what I was doing to avoid having broken rules when adding/removing devices. When a device is removed from the group, no changes need to be made to any rules that depend on that group.
After doing some testing, I can also confirm this new notification command doesn’t support Hubitat Groups in any manner (Dimmer Groups nor Child Notification Groups). As EricM_Inovelli suggested, it does support sending a command to multiple devices at once however.
Do we have any ability to send startNotification (and other) commands to groups of switches/dimmers? I see the ability to choose multiple switches with a Rule Machine rule, but as @Ma2J noted, it’s not ideal. If, for example, I add a new switch to my house and want its LED notifications to match the existing ones, I’d have to add the switch to every single notification rule. Would be much easier to just add the new switch to the “LED Notification Strips Group” and be done. Thanks!
I am using the LED Mini-Dashboard App to group my dimmers. Although it’s not as flexible as a variable scenario, I just add dimmers to the profiles. No need for Rule Machine for Visual Alerts for me.
How bout a hug instead??? Observing good social distancing of course…
Additionally, if I remove a switch from the network that is used in a rule, I end up with a broken action(s). I “think” when using groups, if you remove a switch, it just removes the switch from the group as well. But I need to test that to confirm. Maybe this weekend.