[2.3.3.130] Lights Activator doesn't pick up correct state

I reverted to 127 - works somewhat better but still not great + my hub has just randomly rebooted like 6 or so times today.

Your hub randomly reboots? I've never had that happen. Could that be a loose power connection? I'm just a simple automation guy, maybe one or two rule machine. Good luck.

Ya, I feel the same way. I’m trying to figure out how a fireplace and shades are “lighting” and was told “shades let in light”. I suppose my fireplace “lights up the room” and a door should be under thermostat as “ventilation”
Groups of things non related in grouped areas makes more sense. I don’t consider my patio and surrounding area a room, but it’s a great group of dissimilar items.
I’ll take this argument to my grave.

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I have worked for hours on this and the setup I have now seems fingers crossed to work about 75% as good as groups. Basically I have my room lighting tables, 1 for each room, with the desired color temp, level, and force enabled. I then have under activator, the actual activator device. Its a bit counter-intuitive as the room lighting activator states that is should be already controlled by the activator device but I still had to add the device manually as an on/off activator to get it to actually activate. That works well enough but I get a bit of pop-corning, where the lights will turn on and off 1 at a time. That never happened with groups. I have tried all the settings, and it doesn't seem to matter if ZGM is on or off it still doesnt activate as a group based on the table it activates each device in the group separately. IIRC rule machine has (had?) an option to set the bulb states prior to activation which really helped this as then all I would do is turn on the lights and they would....turn on at once. Im super curious to know what changed, but we can at least control lights again now, albeit in a popcorn-y way.

Another option that I see potentially is setting up multiple activator devices, basically a button that turns on and off for JUST the light switches and a separate bulb activator for color temp control, as if I only use the bulb activator it tries to change color on a temp only bulb every time and screws up the level. Its interesting. Ill turn on a bulb using the bulb activator and it will turn on to 20% brightness, and 6500K temp, the activator device will say its happily at 100% and 2430K or something, and bright red, and I pull the rest of my hair out. I then change the color (on a color temp only bulb) to white and it immediately goes back to 100% brightness matching the activator device, though the activator device still has no clue what color temp it is even though the activator table clearly shows the right temp. Im thinking 2 way communication doesn't exist between the activator and the activator device which doesn't make sense to me but Ill keep messing with my test bulbs to see if I can get it any more consistent.

Edit: Just checked my hub events log again and noticed its rebooting a ton, possibly has something to do with some of the issues Ive been having here, we will see. After updating my rules for morning and nighttime Ill monitor and make sure they fire per the table settings. Morning rule went fine this morning but I was on .125, I updated to .130 after that and thats when the reboots started again. Will update when I find out more.

Nothing about Room Lights prevents you from doing this. Did you miss the last part of this:

You certainly don't have to use Rooms to set it up, just put in the devices you want to group together.

Groups are very simple in RL: Pick the devices, name the Activator Device, done. That will act as a group, just like the older app. If what you want is just a group, ignore all of the other aspects of RL.

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You should show your RL setup page, as this does not make sense, and is not needed if you have RL create the Activator device (just like Group-2.1 creates its activator device).

This sounds like you don't have it set up right at all.

The lights will follow the activator device, just as they did in Group-2.1

This again sounds like you don't have it set up correctly at all.

The Activator Device overrules the table. In fact, for a group the table isn't even used other than that it shows the current values of the lights. The Activator Device commands all of the grouped devices to follow it.

It sounds as though you are confusing a Scene and a Group. A Scene has different values for each light, and the Activator Device either Activates it or Turns it off -- used only as a switch. A Group is a bunch of lights that follow the settings of the Activator Device.

See this post:

Ive been over that a few times, maybe I am confusing Scenes with Groups. That being the case, my assumption is, correct me if I am wrong, that the proper way to make sure lights always turn on at a certain temp and dimming level is to make a rule machine rule to do so using a virtual switch or something like that?


Could you just say in English what you want to happen and what should make it happen.

I’ll try :slight_smile:

I want to turn on all the lights in a room to 100% and 6500k temperature using a virtual dimmer and a physical switch. The virtual dimmer is passed to homekit where I have the ability to control color temperature and brightness. That’s basically how I had groups set up before. I’ll note that it works almost like that now, with the exception of the pop-corning.

What kind of lights?

Are they all Zigbee?

All zigbee

Assuming these are Zigbee bulbs, using the Activator Device to turn them on should not have any pop-corning. Is this what you're seeing?

However, turning them on with a switch wouldn't use Zigbee Group Messaging, so you would get pop-corning, unless you do that in a rule outside of RL, and that rule turns on the Activator device (Basement Lights). When the Activator Device turns on, if they are all Zigbee, it will issue a Zigbee Group command to activate them. Look at a Logs page, and if you see "on (Z)" that's an indicator that it is using ZGM.

Remove the 'Switches that turn on' Means to Activate. Remove the 'Command devices on/off irrespective of...' option. Remove 'Activate even if partially Activated' option. Change the Indicator option from 'Group Any On' to 'Group All On. Remove the 'Switches that turn off' on Means to Turn Off Lights. Remove the 'Turn Off even if already partially off' option. Then hit Update.

Make those changes and see if it doesn't work better.

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Made the changes in a new test lighting rule and same results except this time it turns on the lights to 20% but says they are 100%. If I activate manually in the actual light rule it activates properly. I mean…correct me if I’m wrong, but really I shouldn’t be doing anything with the switches directly, I’ll need to set up rules for them in rule machine. Is that accurate? So I set up the “group” but it may just be easier to call that group and set parameters in a rule machine rule, the only downside is homekit won’t show the true Light status since the activator device doesn’t sync up with the group State.

Did you set the Activator Device from HomeKit? Did you specify both Color Temperature and Level? Perhaps the Activator Device level was already 20. Could you take a screenshot of the Logs please for the app when you activate it with the Activator Device. Could you also show a screenshot of the Current States from the Activator Device device page, right side.

One more thing to test: turn on the Activator Device from its device page by entering 6500 and 100 into the Set Color Temperature tile, and clicking on that tile. Let me know if the lights come on as expected. Should be off prior to test.


Here are the logs from a "off" state, turning on via homekit (the test activator device exposed directly to hk)

Edit: Actually this is what I was last describing, lights turn on, at ~20%, sits a bit, then goes to 100% and the 6535 color temp. So its turning them on then applying the parameters.

That's a different one than you showed above. I'm not seeing anything about 20% in those logs. Also, the command given to the Activator Device was ON, not Set Color Level. Plus, this instance must have two things Activating it, when there should be only one. Or were you doing that on purpose? 3 seconds later.

Again, activating with Means to Activate won't use ZGM. And, when activating with Activation Device, it will follow the command given to the Activation Device. This is exactly how Group-2.1 would work also.

You don't have this one set up properly, and aren't commanding it properly either.

So the only thing activating is the activator device installed by the lighting rule, its stock except what you suggested in the previous post, and the bulb itself doesn't show 20% but it come on dim, gets dimmer, then goes back to 100% from a visual standpoint.

Would you please turn them off and do the test where you give a Set Color Temperature command to the activator device's device page, commanding CT of 6500 and level of 100.

What is the device called "Dining Room Lights' vs the device called 'Test Dining Room'?

It would certainly help if you'd stick to one automation, and show its setup screenshot.

Activator off:

Manually changing level:

Manually changing color temp:

Turning on the activator from hk:

I still don't know what is what: What is "Dining Room Lights" switch? What is the name of the Activator Device on the RL setup page lower right corner (see below)?