Controlling multiple dimmable zigbee lights with one Item?

Setup, Configuration and Use Beginners
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1

Hello friends,
Is it possible to create a single Item that will control multiple dimmable zigbee light bulbs?
In my current setup, I turn the lights ON/OFF with a Zwave wall switch, but I control the dimmers using the Zigbee binding.
To make things easier, I combined the independent dimmers into groups, based on their location in the house, so the bedroom has a group of 2 dimmers, the living room has a group of 6 dimmers, and the entrance hall has a group of 8 dimmers.
Yesterday I read that the Homekit binding can combine 2 Items into one tile, so that I can see both the ON/OFF switch and the dimmer control on the same screen.
I would like to achieve this, but from what I understand, this is limited to only two devices, so I need all the dimmers to work together as one Item. Is this possible?

2

You can put them all into a group and control the group.

Have a look into the documentation about groups and the aggregation of a group

1 Like
3

Thank you for the suggestion :pray:
I tried the following steps:

  1. I added the two zigbee dimmers into a “dimmers group” and gave the group a Homekit metadata of Lighting.Brightness.
  2. I gave the zwave switch item a Homekit metadata of Switchable.OnState.
  3. I then added the “dimmers group” and the zwave switch into a second group which got a Homekit metadata: Switchable, Lighting.
  4. However, when I open the iOS Home app the new tile only shows the zwave switch and not the dimmer slider.
    Have I done something wrong?
4

I cannot hello with homekit but I would try and test it step by step and not try to change multiple things at once.

E.g first combine multiple dimmer items into a group and then verify within openhab that the group is working as expected. Only than work in the homekit integration

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5

You can add multiple channels to one item, and sending a command to it will send it to all of the channels. I don’t know what happens if one of those channels sends an update, but that’s easy enough for you to find out through testing.

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1 Like
6

Thank you for the suggestion :pray:
I tried to follow it without success.
I created a new Item that links two dimmer things (instead of creating a group).
I then created a new group that will hold the zwave switch item and the dimmers item.
However, on the new iOS Home app tile created I’m still seeing only the Switch, without the second dimmer slider.

7

Last one wins