Zigbee Core - Add Zigbee Groups and Scenes Cluster integration

[TedTolboom]

In order to be a competitive platform, I'd like to opt to implement the following (fundamental) zigbee implementation into the Zigbee core and enabled through the zigbeedriver.

Groups cluster - link and unlink devices to a specific group and maintain all by the controller defined groups
Scenes cluster - create scenes that can be easily recalled

In both cases, the implementation has strong parallels to the Z-wave association groups

[TedTolboom]

@RobinBol Any plans for implement this basic cluster integration, including the ability to broadcast a Zigbee command within the network?

If the broadcast option would be possible, I would be tempted to build a custom Zigbee groups and scenes app...

[RobinBol]

Hi @TedTolboom , we don't have these plans at the moment. But it might be interesting to look at sometime. Could you write a concrete proposal on the functionality that you would want/need? For example, what do you mean exactly by "broadcast Zigbee commands". In the context of groups, you mean sending a ZCL command to a specific group id?

[TedTolboom]

@RobinBol I will add a more detailed proposal.

As per: https://apps.developer.homey.app/wireless/zigbee#groups

Zigbee allows another way of inter-node communication which is called groups. This concept can be compared to association groups in Z-Wave. It allows nodes to listen to broadcast messages from other nodes. For example, a remote control which broadcasts its commands to a set of light bulbs. The light bulbs would need to be in the same group as the remote is broadcasting on in order to be controlled with the remote. In order to group devices together the Find and Bind procedure can be used, often this means holding the controlling device close to the receiving device and initiating a commissioning process (how to initiate this process differs from device to device, check the device's manual for these instructions).
By default, Homey listens to all group broadcast communication on its network. Therefore, it does not have to be added to a node's group using Find and Bind in order to receive its commands. This makes it very easy to implement functionality based on group communication in your app.

In Homey's Zigbee API it is, as far as I can tell, not possible to broadcast a command (Group set) to all devices in the network.
Only to a specific node.

If I would have the option to broadcast to the network instead of sending a command to a specific node, it would be possible to add groups support to a specific app or create a specific app adding groups support.

[RobinBol]

I see, broadcasting is actually not the same as group addressing, but I get the point. Would indeed be interesting to somehow support this, no promises though.