[Feature Request] Tags/labels & foreach loop

It would be awesome if we could use meta data for devices to flag them with tags or labels. At the moment we only have zones, devices groups or virtual groups. But own tags would be better. I have some power switches in the same zone kitchen (room), but the dishwasher should never be turned off.

For example: Sometimes i have the problem, that I come home and some devices are still on. Or sometimes my floor light is still on over night. Normally the devices should switched off after x seconds/minutes without movements or if nobody is home I start a flow to switch all devices off instead of some power switches with devices like washers. Then i start a flow again after x minutes to send the “shutdown off” for some devices again.

If I could tag all devices and use it in flows I could save many complex flows. We could use it to check all devices with one flag and one status. For example all power switches with status “power on” and flag “unimportant” should be switch off if nobody is home. The next thing we need is a foreach loop. We could save so many flows with a foreach loop.

Example:
Get all devices with flag “unimportant” & status “On”
Then
Foreach (Shutdown device)

Later it would be nicer to have while do loops too:

if flow started
Get all devices with flag “unimportant” & status “On”
Then
Foreach (Shutdown device → check status → shutdown until the device is off)

if flow started
get all devices with flag “unimportant” & status “playing”
Then
Foreach (Shutdown device → check status → shutdown until the device is off)

get all speakers with flag “unimportant” & status “play”
Then
Foreach (Shutdown device → check status → shutdown until the device is off)

get all devices with flag “thermostat” & flag not equal “important”
Then
Foreach (set temp 18 → check status → set temp until the device is adjusted)

I thinks this is the only way to make sure, that all devices are really off!
Unfortunately the result of an set command is never checked.
Sometimes i don’t need this but this depends on homey firmware and app updates. That’s not ok, how should i save money with a smart home, if my devices are still on because homey doesn’t check the result of a command!

@Julian_S did you try Homey Script? https://homeyscript.homey.app/

Thank you for your input.

Thanks, I will try it. But own labels or tags as attribute would be still awesome to fiIter devices. I will send athom an email.

Has been asked before: https://github.com/athombv/homey/issues/1917 but was deemed wontfix :slightly_frowning_face: fixed it for myself by writing Heimdall :joy:

Too bad, I don’t understand athom’s statement. There are metadata everywhere. Whether on eBay, flats or car used market pages. It would be very easy to show the benefits for this attributes (labels, tags). Unfortunately your request is closed. I am missing A UserVoice platform.

You dont want to introduce something like a foreach loop on a system that should be used with non techy people… I already can hear the noise of all the ‘my homey gone crazy’ topics coming our way…

That would a nice addition. But can’t you make use of an extra ’ unimportant’ room? That is how I solved it currently. There are some devices I don’t want to shutdown if everyone is going to sleep so I put those in a separate zone. And this way I can just use the ‘devices’ cards and skip that specific room.

for this you can already make a bunch of flows?

  1. flow to turn everything off
  2. starts a new flow that checks’ are all devices of?
    3a) if yes. stop
    3b) start flow 2

@Julian_S, maybe the Homey app Group is helpful for what you want with similar devices like your unimportant label.

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The name is „smart home“ not stupid batch home.
Zones are rooms and i don’t wanna use “virtual rooms” for all my devices, which must be still online. And virtual groups have the problem that they don’t check the status of all group members. That means, i send group 1 off and device 1 ist off but device 2 is still on.
Also flags would be easier to use in flows then device id’s. If you need to repairing your devices you have to check many flows. Then you must delete the old card and add the new one. With flags you only have to give the device the same flag again. You spend a lot of time with this.

Or the athom team has to make sure that every command was successful. Normally every “smart home” has to check the result of an command and if it failed the command must be set again until the result ist successful. How smart is it to let devices on over the night? Or how smart is it when the door should be closed but it isn’t? Or if you are using something to control your water in the garden?

There are so many examples of use cases where I wouldn’t trust a smart home at the moment. But exactly these use cases would be very practical. But as long as there are such simple errors. The purchase is actually only worth the gimmick.
Off topic but:

Z-Wave has so many extreme diseases. If I had known that before, I would never have bought so many Z-Wave devices. It starts with the protocol. How can you implement a protocol without a check routine in the “Smart Home” area? It’s like udp -> connectionless protocol -> send it and hope ! Or a mesh network with only 3 hops. Such a stupid design!

1 Like

Well, @Emile liked the suggestion but didn’t want to include it in nov 2017, thats a while ago and maybe his opinion has changed so I see no reason to not ask for this functionality again.
I still think it would be a very powerfull addition as it could deminish the number of needed flows and/or special purpose apps.
Maybe you can write the request and copy it here so others can send in the same request?

I sent an email to support yesterday. Unfortunately the Trello Board is no longer available. A new system for feature suggestions including voting system would be awesome. And very customer friendly. Maybe they could reactivate the trello board.

Well that simply hasn’t been the case for quite some time, not only do they but you can change what value you want the group to display. (mode average, mean average, median average, highest value, lowest value, on if all are on, on if any are on, even on if none are on’ …