Add is_group attribute to light groups

[krissen]

Home Assistant release with the issue: 0.67.1

Component/platform: light groups doc

Description of problem: impossible to differentiate between actual lights, and light groups.

Problem-relevant configuration.yaml entries and (fill out even if it seems unimportant):

- platform: group
  name: rooma
  entities:
    - light.bulb1
    - light.bulb2

Additional information: There are scenarios (like this) where it would be helpful to be able to differentiate between actual lights (light.bulb1 and light.bulb2 in the configuration above) and a light group (eg. light.rooma). This could be done by automatically adding an attribute to light groups; for instance is_group = true, similar to the attribute is_hue_group: true which is set for light groups imported through hue.

[krissen]

Hmm. Not sure if you consider this a bug or a feature request. x-D Posted one there too.

[OttoWinter]

All attributes are stored in each state object and therefore land in the database with every single state change. The project tries to minimize the amount of static attributes to optimize states and not open a can of worms (there would be tons of feature requests with a certain attribute that should be added and would ultimately clutter the database).

Admittedly, there are quite a few components that use static attributes right now, but that doesn't mean we should repeat past mistakes.

Also, the light group platform should behave like & and have the attributes as any other light by design. They should essentially be indistinguishable from single lights in the frontend.

In the use-case you linked to: why not just create a custom blacklist? I mean you have to create separate configuration sections for each light group anyway, so I honestly don't see the reason why a whole new attribute should be added when a simple little blacklist would probably work just fine.

[fanaticDavid]

You could also consider just adding the keyword group to the name, which you're defining in the configuration anyway.

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