Stuck on basic device grouping

[jemenake (Joe)]

I’m trying to create my first device group. I have two Sengled RGBW bulbs in my entryway, and I want to control them as a single unit.

I literally copied a section from the Group section on the main HA site (Group - Home Assistant) and pasted it into my groups.yaml file:

group:
  entryway:
    name: Entryway
    entities:
      - light.sengled_1_level_light_color_on_off
      - light.sengled_2_level_light_color_on_off

Seems pretty straightforward, but now I’m treated to a log error about the group config:

Invalid config for [group]: [entryway] is an invalid option for [group]. Check: group->group->group->entryway. (See /config/configuration.yaml, line 7). Please check the docs at Group - Home Assistant

A couple of questions:

1. I thought the [group] section was using the hashtable keys just to ensure that there wasn’t a name collision with other groups/devices. So why would “entryway” be invalid when, from the website, “kitchen”, “climate”, and “awesome_people” are just fine?
2. If the problem is with group->group->group->entryway, then how do I inspect the contents of (or add something to) “group” or “group->group”?

[123 (Taras)]

@jemenake

and pasted it into my groups.yaml file:

The example shown in the documentation is meant to be used in the configuration.yaml file. If you want to use the groups.yaml file, remove the first line containing group: because it’s not required here (more than “not required”, it’s invalid).

BTW, you are using a standard Group containing two lights. You might want to consider using a Light Group instead. It will provide you with a bit more control of the lights (on/off, brightness, color, etc).

If you do choose to use a Light Group, it is not configured in the groups.yaml file. Configure it wherever you currently have configured your lights (under light: in configuration.yamlor in thelights.yaml` file if that’s what you are using).

[jemenake (Joe)]

@123

If you want to use the groups.yaml file, remove the first line containing group:

Ahh. Okay. I see that the line in configuration.yaml is: group: !include groups.yaml so, that “group:” prefix is including the stuff from groups.yaml under the “group” namespace. Makes sense.

@123

remove the first line containing group: because… …more than “not required”, it’s invalid)

Now I’m confused, since the first level of keys in groups.yaml should be the group names, yes? So I can’t have a group called “group”? I would think that the problem is that HA expects the second level to include the mandatory keys (like “name:” and “entities:”) and all it saw was “entryway”.

@123

You might want to consider using a Light Group instead. It will provide you with a bit more control of the lights (on/off, brightness, color, etc)

So… let me make sure that I get this straight. Regular groups don’t expose the intersection of all of the capabilities of all of the members? It just exposes on/off of the binary actuator capability?

So, I removed the “group:” level from groups.yaml, and we’ve made a little progress. Configuration->Server Controls says the configuration is valid, but now I can’t find the group, anywhere. It’s not in the catch-all Lovelace dashboard. It’s not in Configuration->Devices nor Configuration-Entities, nor does it appear as an available device in the Actions of automations.

[123 (Taras)]

@jemenake

Regular groups don’t expose the intersection of all of the capabilities of all of the members? It just exposes on/off of the binary actuator capability?

Basically, yes. A standard group’s behavior is explained in this section of its documentation.

@jemenake

I removed the “group:” level from groups.yaml … I can’t find the group, anywhere

Check the Configuration > Logs for error messages. There’s (obviously) some other mistake involved.

[r-j-taylor]

@jemenake

Configuration->Server Controls says the configuration is valid

Just to double check since you didn’t mention it: did you restart the server, or at least refresh groups, after ensuring the configuration is valid? It will be listed as an entity once it has been created successfully.