Turn lights on with automation in parallel

I’m using the in parallel building block to turn on my lights on simultaneously, but it still turns on sequentially. Why?

actions:
  - parallel:
      - type: turn_on
        device_id: 49606131ee3d3213b3a58ca41a9a49d5
        entity_id: 41ab82098183399241dbce4451a5444b
        domain: switch
      - type: turn_on
        device_id: e34f044db8e5cf7b74995a350a4a7ba7
        entity_id: e7bed008b85636d203c20f02ae0aefdc
        domain: switch
      - type: turn_on
        device_id: 5d66105145340fdbdc4e310f09108c0a
        entity_id: ed2ee93919b85d460cba38e95fe296ca
        domain: switch

Hello testuser,

If I were guessing, I would say you are using a cloud service (Tuya?) and that is the delay. Since you are using device_id it is impossible to tell from here, though.

As stated in the docs, using the parallel action means the action will be started at the same time, not that they will be completed at the same time. @Sir_Goodenough mentioned cloud services, but this can also affect local integrations because the actual radio signals end up being sent in the sequence the integration processes them.

If you are using Zigbee or ZWave, you may want to create groups within the integration. Since only a single “message” is needed for the whole group to respond, this can result in more synchronized light changes. Using groups can also cut down traffic over the mesh.

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Because the lighting technology employed by those three lights can only transmit commands sequentially.

That’s true for most lighting technologies; they can’t transmit commands in parallel.

If the transmission speed is very fast, and there aren’t many lights to turn on, they may appear to turn on simultaneously (almost). Otherwise you get what has been described as the “popcorn” effect where each light turns on with a noticeable delay from each other.

I suggest you follow Didgeridrew’s recommendation and create a native Zigbee/z-wave group (not a Home Assistant lighting group). When you instruct Home Assistant to turn on a native group, a single command is transmitted and all members receive it simultaneously. This is normally the best way to prevent the “popcorn” effect

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Ahh, a ZigBee group, that makes sense. Is that something that could be done from the ZigBee Home Assistant integration that I have in HA, though? I’m not sure where the grouping feature is there. I had an HA group, but I understand now why that wouldn’t help.

If you’re using ZHA in HA, go to your Integrations, click on ZigBee (not the entities link), then Configure, and then Groups should be the 2nd tab where you can define groups. Put your lights in a group, and then toggle the group on - it’s also much better for Zigbee itself to use control groups than call individual devices.

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All the details are here:

Zigbee Home Automation - Zigbee Group

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I appreciate both of your answers and that’s super helpful for me in the future. I just realized that I confused my Lutron on WiFi for ZigBee for some reason. So I guess I am really just at the mercy of the Lutron hub, right?

Which one of the three available Lutron integrations are you using?

Lutron

Lutron Caseta

In that case, you may wish to consider using a Lutron scene. You create it using the Lutron app and it will appear in Home Assistant as a scene entity. Turn on the scene and it will do whatever you configured it to in the app.

Will this eliminate the “popcorn” effect? Maybe; I have no experience with how Lutron manages commands in its native scenes. Try it and see how it performs.

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Amazing! That did the trick. Thank you very much!

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