Cover groups

tamburino · July 28, 2018, 7:44pm

hello
I would like to group my covers (I have 6 windows in the hall and I would like to control 3 and 3 together).

at first I created a group of covers. problem is that in the frontend I get a circle with the three dots and, when I tap on that, I still need to control the three single entities individually.

then I moved to “cover group platform”. https://www.home-assistant.io/components/cover.group/

when I create the first platform it works almost fine. I get a “cover” control in the front end (i.e. arrow up, stop, arrow down). the only issue is that the UP arrow is grayed out and I can never raise my covers.

when I create the second platform, the second one doesn’t show in the front end at all.

# Example configuration.yaml entry
cover:
  - platform: group
    name: living_tende
    entities:
     - cover.tenda_09_living
     - cover.tenda_10_living
     - cover.tenda_11_living
  - platform: group
    name: tavola_tende
    entities:
     - cover.tenda_12_tavola
     - cover.tenda_13_tavola
     - cover.tenda_14_tavola

now, I am not really sure of how I should create multiple groups like this. the “check config” buttons does not give any error. any suggestion?

also, it would be great to understand why the first group can’t go up… the single entities can!

thank you so much for any help!

tamburino · July 28, 2018, 7:53pm

ok, I gave it another try before going to bed and it worked… I don’t know what I did this time. now the two groups show up in the front end. however:

they are dislplayed with the horrible name with the underscore. the platform doesn’t seem to have friendly-name option. any other solution?
neither of the group can go up!!! this is really really bad. any idea here?

fmc · September 2, 2019, 5:16pm

I am having the same issue with the up button unavailable; I’m using two groups, each with two cover switches (all Tuya devices).

The switches work fine in HA independently, the issue only occurs with the cover groups.

kwasi76 · February 2, 2020, 12:22pm

I also have the same problem.
Configured 2 cover groups and only the STOP and DOWN buttons are enabled.
The individual covers work fine.
Anyone any ideas?

gbraux · March 21, 2020, 12:01am

I am having the exact same issue.
Cover Groups only shows the stop and down option. Up is grayed out …
Houston, looks like we have a bug here

FYI : Triggering “cover.open_cover” on the group (ie. in an automation) works. So it looks to only be a UI issue … But I think most people wants to create cover groups to have a nice UI, anyway, this is broken …

BigBen · March 22, 2020, 11:49am

I also have this issue.
In the normal cover config this can be solved by using:
‘position_template: 50’
but that doesn’t work on a cover group.

Anyone solved this ?

EdwardEnglish · May 3, 2020, 2:40pm

were you able to fix this? I have the same problem. I have three covers in one group, but I can only stop or down control the group. UP is greyed out because the group state is showing “open” permanently!! how to get arount?

BigBen · May 3, 2020, 6:34pm

No unfortunately not, I still have the same problem as you have.

Gromy · May 7, 2020, 7:26am

Hi,

dont know what type of covers you have, but with rts one and rfxtrx entities groups work very fine. My config :

  - platform: group
    name: Volets vie
    entities:
      - cover.cuisine
      - cover.salle_a_manger
      - cover.salon
      - cover.escalier
  - platform: group
    name: Volets nuit
    entities:
      - cover.bureau
      - cover.chambre

I do have now 2 more entries in the covers list, with exactly the same buttons / UI, up stop and down working.

nickb512 · May 22, 2020, 7:51pm

Also seeing this here. I have 3x Somfy blinds in a group and the up option is disabled in the GUI but works with the automations in Node-RED

bestermanus · November 21, 2020, 10:58am

old post, but i had the problem and resolve it by removing space in the cover group name : before cover group1 (not working) now cover_group1 (working)

bestermanus · December 6, 2020, 9:02am

add 3 blinds to an existing group… no more arrows for the group. Definitively a bug.

duceduc · December 6, 2020, 9:12am

I am about to add group cover. Do we still need to substitute “whitespace” with "_ " for the name to fully get it working?

bestermanus · December 6, 2020, 10:02am

dont work anymore for me (with or without spaces) ; one of my two groups work with two blind, but if I add a blind, it is not added, only the two initials blind operate. (sorry for bad english)

duceduc · December 7, 2020, 9:24pm

Strange. It seems to be working for me. I have both the up and down arrows and the stop button. Let’s see how long it will stay like this.

cover:
  - platform: switchbot-curtain
    name: CR Curtains
    mac: D5:C6:CF:04:98:HC
  - platform: switchbot-curtain
    name: LR Curtains
    mac: B2:E3:C5:31:PD:EC

  - platform: group
    name: Curtains
    entities:
      - cover.cr_curtains
      - cover.lr_curtains

JeromeO · February 13, 2021, 5:59pm

It’s working for me with my Somfy RTS blinds (RFXCom) !
Here is what I have in my configuration.yaml :

cover:
  - platform: group
    name: Upstairs blinds
    entities:
      - cover.master_bedroom_blind
      - cover.oceanes_bedroom_blind
  - platform: group
    name: Downstairs blinds
    entities:
      - cover.kitchen_blind
      - cover.study_blind
      - cover.living_room_left_blind
      - cover.living_room_middle_blind
      - cover.living_room_right_blind

Lovelace cards :

Left entities card yaml :

type: entities
entities:
  - entity: cover.kitchen_blind
  - entity: cover.living_room_left_blind
  - entity: cover.living_room_middle_blind
  - entity: cover.living_room_right_blind
  - entity: cover.study_blind
  - entity: cover.master_bedroom_blind
  - entity: cover.oceanes_bedroom_blind
title: Blinds
state_color: true

Right vertical stack card yaml :

type: vertical-stack
cards:
  - type: entities
    entities:
      - entity: cover.downstairs_blinds
      - entity: cover.upstairs_blinds
    state_color: true

aspitz · February 25, 2021, 4:16pm

Hi there!
I have 2 shades covers, also defined them with a group cover, but on lovelace the grou only shows up and stop buttons, while the down is greyed out, but the individual controls display all three options and they all work.

configuration.yaml

 cover:
   - platform: mqtt
     name: "Blackout Emma"
     state_topic: "stat/Emma_Blackout/POWER"
     command_topic: "cmnd/Emma_Blackout/Backlog"
     qos: 0
     retain: false
     payload_open: "power1 OFF; power2 ON"
     payload_close: "power2 OFF; power1 ON"
     payload_stop: "power1 OFF; power2 OFF"
     state_open: "ON"
     state_closed: "OFF"
     optimistic: false
     value_template: >-
       {% if value_json.POWER1 == 'OFF' and value_json.POWER2 == 'OFF' %} 50 
       {% elif value_json.POWER1 == 'OFF' %} 100 
       {% elif value_json.POWER2 == 'ON' %} 0 
       {% endif %}
   - platform: mqtt
     name: "Screen Emma"
     state_topic: "stat/Emma_Screen/POWER"
     command_topic: "cmnd/Emma_Screen/Backlog"
     qos: 0
     retain: false
     payload_open: "power2 OFF; power1 ON"
     payload_close: "power1 OFF; power2 ON"
     payload_stop: "power1 OFF; power2 OFF"
     state_open: "ON"
     state_closed: "OFF"
     optimistic: false
     value_template: >-
       {% if value_json.POWER1 == 'OFF' and value_json.POWER2 == 'OFF' %} 50 
       {% elif value_json.POWER1 == 'OFF' %} 100 
       {% elif value_json.POWER2 == 'ON' %} 0 
       {% endif %}
   - platform: group
     name: Cortinas Emma
     entities:
       - cover.blackout_emma
       - cover.screen_emma

ui-lovelace.yaml

       - type: entities
         show_header_toggle: false
         #title: Cortinas
         entities:
           - entity: cover.blackout_emma
             name: Blackout Emma
           - entity: cover.screen_emma
             name: Screen Emma
           - entity: cover.cortinas_emma
             name: Todas

Here’s a screenshot:
covers

aspitz · February 25, 2021, 5:19pm

Actually, I just found why it’s not working … the buttons are grayed out according to their state . If their state is set to closed , you can’t close it anymore, hence the grayed out button.
Problem is, status of cover group is always set to closedupon HA restart …
Now, I need to try and figure out how to replicate the actual shade status with code since you can also open or close it with physical buttons.

Zoker · February 27, 2021, 10:26am

One rather easy way to “fix” this is to set the current_position for the group via the customizations.

In the UI:

Go to the “Customizations” settings item on the main settings panel
Select the cover group
Click on “Pick an attribute to override”
Select “Other”
For the “Attribute name” enter current_position
For the “Attribute value” enter 50
Click “Save”

Or in the customize.yaml file:

cover.jalousie_erdgeschoss:
  current_position: '50'

Now HA does not try to assume the state of the cover anymore and just thinks it is always half open. Therefore both controls are always enabled. I hope this helps (at least for a quick fix)