Setting Dimmer Level without turning on

#1

Is there any way to set dimmer levels without turning on the light? I have a piston that sets my bathroom lights to 10% after a certain hour, however the lights first turn on at 100% and then dim down to 10%. The initial bright light is enough to eliminate the benefit of this piston. The same question also applies to other attributes such as color, etc. Would be nice to set the value before the light is turned on so it turns on with the correct settings.

GE Dimmer set default max level
#2

the light needs to support setting the level when the light is off and only some lights support that.

try the fade tasks. so instead of this:

with bathroom light
   turn on
   set level to 10%

try this:

with bathroom light
   fade level to 10% in 0 seconds

works just a little quicker for me.

#3

Do Cree bulbs support it?

#4

I do not believe so.

#5

I use the Leviton Vizia RF+ dimmers. Iā€™ll try it out and report back! Thanks!

BTW, is there some place where all the available commands (set level, fade, etc) are described?

#6

sure. dont believe so.

tagging @webCoRE_Minions in case someone else knows of such doc.

#7

The devices capability reference on the ST site lists and explains all the default/native commands that are available.

#8

Thanks @ahndee! It looks like webCore supports more capabilities though. I did not find fade (unless CTRL-F failed me) and setLevel seems to have a rate feature that I do not believe webCore supports. It actually appears that STā€™s setLevel is closer in functionality to webCoreā€™s fade.

#9

What exact commands are supported depends on the device type handler in use. And yes, I believe that the fade() command is a webCoRe addition.

#10

as @ahndee posted fade() is a webcore addition which combines 2 device commands in to a single virtual command. these device commands are toggle on and set level which often go together.

#11

@bangali - what you say implies that if I setLevel without TurnOn, then I should be able to set the desired dimmer level without turning on the light IF the device itself supports itā€¦ which is what Iā€™d like to do. I believe my Leviton Vizia RF+ dimmers actually turn on the light when I use setLevel but I need to double check that.

I am hoping that, as you said earlier, fade will be faster for me too but having the cloud being part of the mix I suspect I will still get blinded with the light coming on at full brightness during the night (my bathroom has 7 x 60W equivalent LED bulbsā€¦ 420W of light which I believe is close to 6000 lumens)

#12

that depends on the deviceā€™s capabilities. many lights dont support setlevel when they are off.

theres actually a fairly easy solution to this with webcore: :slight_smile:

every day at 10:00pm
   with bathroom light
      capture attribute switch
      fade level to 10% in 0 seconds
      restore attribute switch
end every

this assumes off course, these led bulbs store the last level they were set to, which most bulbs that i have seen do.

#13

Thanks for this! I need to see how long the light stays on if fade were to turn it one at 10pm. Hopefully it is fast enough not to bother my baby daughter that would be bathed in light if it happens with the door open.

#14

sure thing. if its a baby dealio i would use a gradual routine. here is a simple version, just use your own times and levels:

every hour at 00 mins past the hour
   with bathroom light
      capture attribute switch
      fade level to (($hour24 >= 22 || $hour24 <= 6) ? 10 : ($hour24 < 9 ? 30 : 
                                     ($hour24 < 19 ? 100 : ($hour24 < 20 ? 80 : 
                                     ($hour24 < 21 ? 50 : 30))))) in 0 seconds
      restore attribute switch
end every
#15

Where can I learn more about ā€œcapture attributeā€ and ā€œrestore attribute?ā€

Iā€™m trying to achieve the same outcome as the OP, but rather than smart lights, I have GE/Jasco smart dimmer switches. Iā€™m trying to learn whether or not those actions add anything to my scenario.

Thanks!

#16

best way would be to try it.

what the above does is capture the switch state. set the level to a new level. restore the previously captured switch state so the switch goes to on or off whatever setting it was before the set level.

this should work for any light or switch that supports the set level command.

note that the capture and restore tasks allow capturing and restoring other attributes besides the switch.

#17

I know this thread is old news now, butā€¦
I just looked over the device handler for my GE motion dimmer (26933) and found that it supports SetDefaultLevel(), which sets the brightness without turning on the light. Genius! Perhaps this helps someone in the community going forward.

#18

Anyone know this for LIFX? I ran into a situation where I manually turned off my LIFX and my piston turned it back on because it happened to be in the period of time where it was fading to zero over a period of time. As mentioned above, I believe the fade to creates an ā€œonā€ function first, which would explain why this happened. I could always split my pistons into two separate ones (the on portion earlier in the day and the off portion later in the evening - the latter having and ā€œif onā€ portion to prevent my issue from happening) but I thought I would find any easier way, because as of now, my piston for on and off are all within oneā€¦

#19

Unfortunately I have not solved my problem yet. The piston turns on the lights at their last level (100%) and then turns them down to the dim level I want at night over the next 1 or 2 seconds. It is ok but not ideal. I have Leviton Vizia RF+ dimmers which do not seem to support changing level while off. I have not tried to turn on, dim, and turn back off as I suspect this will result in annoying light turning on for several seconds at my preset time each day potentially waking up my baby girl. As it is now, I get the max light for a second or so just the first time I turn the lights on when past the trigger point. The low to high dimming in the morning is not a problem because it just appears as a slow ramp up of the dimmer.

#20

I couldnā€™t find a way to do it either so I just use ā€˜set levelā€™ instead of turning on and then setting the level.