Light adjustment

#1

I’d like to have my kitchen light turn on to 25% when we first hit the switch (a GE Z-Wave dimmer.) My wife tends to crank it up to blinding levels which makes me crazy. So I create a piston that when the switch is turned on sets the level to 25%. The problem is that my wife turns it on, cranks it up right away, then a couple seconds later the light dims to 25%. Then she swears and goes back to turn it up again. That makes HER crazy. It’s her or me…

I also tried to operate on the light when turning it off instead. I tried to first set the level to 25%, then turn it off when the switch changes to off. The problem there is that the switch turns the light off, then it comes back on at 25% and stays there.

Is there any way to accomplish what I want to do? Simply that when the light is turned on it’s initially set at 25% every time, without making anyone nuts.

#2

When various things happen in my house, I have a lot of bulbs alerting me with certain colors or levels of brightness. I like this, but after the colors flash etc, I want the bulb to return to its ‘default’ setting before turning off. This will make sure the next time I manually turn on the lught, it always begins at the level and color that I want. (of course, this method won’t prevent your wife from cranking it up afterwards)

The method that I use is: WebCoRE monitors a Simulated Switch.

If SimSwitch turns off
Then with KitchenBulb
Set level to 25%
Wait 500 ms
Turn off
#3

Yeah, that would work but… I need it to work with the actual kitchen light switch, not a simulated switch. Or could I have the physical kitchen switch affect a simulated switch which would then set the kitchen level correctly before turning it off again?

#4

If your light switch is hard wired directly to the offending bulb, your options may be limited. You could tell webCoRE to drop the levels anytime it goes over X, but that is likely to cause turmoil in your household… (remember, if momma ain’t happy, then ain’t nobody happy… LOL)

Perhaps an easy solution is to install a weaker bulb in that socket?

#5

Happy wife… happy life… Yeah, the physical switch is connected to the 5 recessed LED lights in the kitchen. Looks like I’m just going to have to deal with my wife swearing when the light dims on her. Eventually she’ll get used to it. I may play around with the physical switch interacting with a virtual switch which can then adjust the level for next turn on. Maybe I can do something there.

#6

Best done by an electrician, but I have done this in the past by disconnecting the wire from the smart switch to the bulb socket. As long as the switch in the wall can talk to the ST hub, you can use my SimSwitch method shown above.

Perhaps a more practical idea to throw out there:
If you use Alexa or Google Home, you can make a SimSwitch for each of you. If her SimSwitch comes on, the lights go the way SHE wants… If your SimSwitch comes on, the lights go to YOUR preference. (totally ignoring the wall switch in both cases)

(the rule of thumb that I often aim for is the wall switches are when I want to OVERRIDE the smart home programming. Which is the opposite of what you are trying to do)

#7

I’m an electrical engineer, not an electrician, but I can do electrical work, But I’d still need some kind of switch attached to the lights. I don’t think I’m going to mess with that.

We do have an Echo Dot which we really don’t use too much (the thing we most used it for, turning on a group of outside lights for the dog, got supplanted by a webCoRE piston that turns on 3 lights when one physical switch is turned on.) Maybe I could train her to use that instead of the physical switch but it will be an uphill battle. Maybe I need to give up the physical switch to her and just use a virtual switch via Alexa myself though.

Thanks for the ideas!

#8

Brilliant! This is likely the path of least resistant. I can speak first hand on the difficulties in “training” certain people to do things differently. It is often best if I simply change my own methods to work around their habits. (especially if the habit is deeply ingrained)

One strategy that I sometimes employ:
If her wall switch is boring (old-school on/off… yawn) and your SimSwitch toggled by Alexa is COOL doing 5 things at once, then there is a much higher chance of her eventually wanting to be a part of the bonus features. This basically lets her come over to the “Smart-Side” at her own pace.

#9

Nah, we’re actually both much happier with the one boring wall switch turning on all the lights for the dog, for example. Alexa was a pain - she doesn’t always respond quickly or properly. Oh well - we’re not quite living in the future yet.

#10

I understand. My first SmartHome device was X10 back in 2001 (I think), so I can barely remember a time when I wasn’t living in a smarthome, LOL

One last idea:
If you have an old tablet or cell phone laying around (no SIM card required), you can turn it into a ‘command-center’ with a dozen or more switches all in one place. Very snappy response, and no need to remember the exact Alexa phrase.

#11

Yep, us too with X10, although I have no idea when I started with that stuff.

That’s an idea too, but nothing is as fast and easy as a physical switch. Maybe I’ll just install a dummy switch to use in place of the real one that is actually controlling the lights.

#12

Yes, a ST compatible battery powered dummy switch (stuck to the wall, not wired to any bulb) could easily control the SimSwitch. The beauty of this method is you can have one of dozen different things happening based on other conditions.

For example, when the SimSwitch turns on (one button, easy to press):

  • In mid day, turn lights to 100% if hubby is at work
  • In mid day, turn lights to 25% if wife is at work
  • In mid day, turn lights to 63% if both are home (computer controlled compromise :sunglasses:)
  • In the evening, turn lights to to 40%
  • While sleeping, turn 3 of 5 lights to 10%
  • etc etc…

Of course, your hard wired dimmer switch can be right next to the button, so precise dimming will always be easy… (but with good coding, it will usually turn on the way you want) With this method, one ‘wall’ switch controls multiple bulbs differently depending on other variables. Once you start down these paths, the real beauty of SmartHome begins to present itself… Your house literally becomes ‘Smart’…

#13

You probably already know this, but please do NOT use smart bulbs with dimmer switches. You may get lucky… for awhile… but the end results are rarely good.

#14

Hey, I just thought of something that requires NO money out of pocket…

If you have a motion sensor in that room, you can program an auto-shutoff after X minutes of no activity… Then add the following lines to the piston’s shutdown sequence.

With KitchenBulb(s)
Set level to 25%
Wait 500 ms
Turn off

This would guarantee that each “turn on” would begin at 25% UNLESS someone manually turned it off while at full brightness.

If you go this route, the new habit you’d have to get used to is:
Never turn the light off manually.
Always let it time out in X minutes after the room is cleared.

If this doesn’t sound feasible in your household, please ignore this entire post, LOL

#15

If you only have this issue once a day, you can easily make a one-line piston that sets those bulbs to 25% every day 5 minutes before you get off work.

Sometimes simple is all that’s needed…

#16

I think that I understand the issue. How about something like this. Instead of handling the set to 25% when turning on, set it when turning off?

Pseudo-Code

If kitchen_switch switch changes to off
with kitchen_switch
set level to 25%
Turn off

So, you turn it off. You may notice it blink back on again at 25%, but then turn off. But next time you turn on, it should come on at 25% (assuming that the switch always turns on at the last level).

#17

Yeah, I tried that pseudo-code and it doesn’t work. It goes back to 25% and won’t turn off. Because when you turn it off the code sets it back to 25% again. I tried a few different ways but gave up.

Thanks guys - lots of good ideas here. I like some of the wireless remotes with multiple buttons so I could control other things, although I don’t have anything else in mind quite yet.

But… duh, I just realized that the kitchen light switch was actually added as a 3-way when I had some other work in the house done. The original switch was around the corner in the hallway which made no sense. Then I added Z-Wave switches and didn’t need the original any more, so there’s just a blank plate there now.

I should be able to move my actual kitchen switch (a GE Z-Wave dimmer) back over to the hallway. Then instead of running traveler wires to a GE add-on switch I’ll just run power and neutral over there and install a dimmer switch connected to no load. WebCoRE can then use that switch to programmatically do what I actually want it to do with the real switch, which will still be available around the corner if necessary. If I do this right the wife may never know… :slight_smile:

One other idea I might incorporate - check the lux level outside and set the light appropriately inside. I think that will probably be tough to get right, though, and my wife will still be unhappy with the pause, then change in level. But I like the concept.

#18

I think I found a loophole. (Disable Command Optimization)
This works well when I tested with my Philips Hue bulbs.

Whenever the lights are bright, and the switch is turned off, the bulb comes back on briefly, resets the level to 25%, then turns itself off. (All happens in about a second)

Hopefully it works for you as well.

index
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and the output log:
temp

If you want to keep the logs in place, you will have to change the two highlighted sections to the exact name of your device. Otherwise, those two lines can be deleted.

Oh yea, the variable at the top can be deleted as well. I was experimenting, LOL

#19

Hmm - interesting! I hadn’t heard of that “disable command optimization” setting. But if that works with your test script then I have a feeling it might work with my simple code that I first tried, similar to the pseudo-code HAL2000 wrote above. Do you need really need to wait for 500 milliseconds? Is that to allow the switch to do its thing before going on to the next line?

#20

Hot damn - it works! I’ll have to look into this command optimization thing a little more to see if there are any other unintended consequences (this is part of a larger lighting control piston but I could make it a separate one.)

I’m simply doing this:
If Kitchen’s switch changes to off
then with Kitchen do
set level to 25%;
Turn off;

Actually I can’t explain it but it works far better than I thought it would. When turning off the light it just dims off like always. It does not flash back on like I thought it would (I wouldn’t have minded if it did though.) Next time I turn it on, voila - it simply turns on to 25%. Thanks! You might have saved my marriage. :wink: