I noticed for some time now that my LIFX bulbs were coming on in series vs all at once. Bulb one turns on THEN bulb two, etc, until all bulbs are on.
Is this because of Smartthings or Webcore? When I use the LIFX app, all bulbs behave as a single unit. Is there a way to use the “rooms” or “groups” of the bulbs in Webcore vs individual bulbs?
Expected Outcome is that all bulbs come on at once based on predefined “rooms” or “groups”.
I am not sure where to place the blame, but from what I have seen, everything happens sequentially. (one after the other) Although, if coded properly, there should only be 10ms or so between each command sent.
For a silly visualization, imagine I had a room full of people. If I said, “Let’s go to a movie”, they would exit my room in single file. (If they all tried to leave at the same instant, there would be a traffic jam)
Keeping this in mind, I take it even one step farther:
If there are multiple pistons trying to do things at the exact same moment, there is a possibility of commands being ‘lost’ in transit, and never reaching the devices. Because of this, I try to code so no two triggers happens simultaneously, and sometimes even ‘force’ a tiny delay to insure this.
In other words, I value reliability over speed, so I go out of my way to make sure that I do not have multiple commands trying to run simultaneously.
Your mileage may vary.
If you have scenes set up in the LIFX app, you could call those scenes using webCoRE. They will all come on in parallel that way.
Man, you are super helpful @WCmore. Again, thanks for commenting on this thread!
It’s noticeable and the wife has been complaining about how they turn on sequentially. I totally get your analogy about the theater. I would think the bandwidth would be the size of the door. I have more then enough to “give it all at once”. Sorry bad adult humor there.
I see that @Eric182 just commented as well. This is sorta what I was looking for. I know that Webcore can call “Scenes” but why can’t it (or can it) call “Groups”? I am using a scene as we discussed before.
I already have “Groups” set up. Perhaps this can be a “feature request”? I would like to make it one. It’s a bit of a pain for “Scenes” in LIFX.
There is a custom smartapp that you can look at that will group lights. It is called trendsetter. If you install it, do not use the code at the top of the thread to manually install it. Either use the github method or look further down the thread for the updated code.
Thanks @jkp. If I can’t find any other way of logically grouping bulbs natively then I’ll default to this!
For what it’s worth, I don’t think your bandwidth can be compared to the ‘door’ in my example…
I think it is likely the SmartThings hub that is the bottleneck by sending commands sequentially.
If that is true, then you may be forced to send a single command to a third party app that is capable of sending multiple commands simultaneously.
In the meantime, what I often do instead of sending a command like this:
I will break it up and consciously choose the order of the lights turning on. (IE: clockwise on a chandelier, left to right on a track runner, or outer lights first and inner lights next etc)
If we have control of the order they come on, the end results can look amazing and professional.
Check it out. I found the magic key to set state of my predefined groups of LIFX bulbs!
LIFX will handle color temps, you just have to put it in as an expression with quotes as per the pic.
@Lutraphobia For some reason I don’t see my LIFX groups. Only option for value is “All Lights”. Did you have to do anything to see your light groups?
Hi @Koyfam - here is how I did it. Not sure it’s correct but I got it to work like this.
Create new Piston and create your trigger under “IF”.
Under “Then” select to add a statement
Then “Add an Action”
Stick with the default “Location” under devices and then select “Add a Task”
Then under “Do…” Select “LIFX - Set State”
Then select “VALUE” under the selector (Note: NOT Physical Device).
I am going back to physical devices though because, although I like how the bulbs come on all at once now, if I change them manually (color, temp, level) and then motion is detected, they immediately snap back to the state that is set in the piston. Even if I leave a setting out for the brightness level, then the bulbs don’t turn on at all. It’s all very frustrating. I am sure I can solve this state issue by code, but I am not a developer. Just slowly learning newb. 
HTH!
-W
Thanks for the info. Unfortunately I do not see any of my LIFX groups in the dropdown as you do. My only option is “All Lights” under Value.
For now, I am also just turning on\off one at a time. My biggest issue I am having with my LIFX buls is that whenever I try to do a Fade on to x % for y mins, my bulbs sporadically turn on and off. Drives me nuts…
Hi everyone!
I wanted to revive this thread because it looks like Smartthings just introduced Lighting Groups.
When do we think I’ll be able to call on a group that I created in the new app from Webcore?
My “snazzy” way to code it, is to code each bulb separately.
(IE: clockwise on a chandelier, left to right on a track runner, or outer lights first and inner lights next etc)
It may be a tad more code in the piston, but the execution is smoother, and I have more control over the results.
I guess my logic is, since SmartThings executes one command after another (sequentially), I may as well be the one deciding which device goes first.
Thanks; I kinda thought it was a dumb question but you seem to come up with some clever ideas so i thought I’d ask 
For those that may be interested. I figured this out. I just tried this - LIFX Group of Groups @ [RELEASE][UPDATED] LIFX Group of Groups
Took a while to set it up but it seems to do pretty well. I can fade in and fade out as well as control a LIFX group or a bunch of groups with one group (virtual switch). My lights all turn on at once and works well with webcore after I imported them into the service.
Hi @Eric182!
Can you please be more specific?
Do you mean this?
That is the ST integration at least and then added them all to Webcore.
Go here.
And then here.
Follow the directions to link your LIFX bUlbs Directly to web core. And then you’ll have access to all of the scenes that you set up in the life X app.
Yes sir. I’ve already done that.
Problem is (at least this is what I’ve found) if I set a scene on a timer say for 10 minutes, and then sometime during that 10 minutes I need the light dimmed more, when the timer activates again, it goes back to the scene settings.
I am sure there is a way around this with more advanced programming skills. Problem is, I don’t have those.
What I found with the LIFX Group of Groups is working for me. So I think i’ll stick with that until I have more time to dive a little deeper with expressions and all that other dev stuff.
