Bulb Temperature vs Time Of Day when Turning On Using A Dumb Switch

💡 Lighting
#1

I'm trying to set the color of my office light fixture with 5 Hue bulbs based on time of day. Rules for if the light is on and it changes over from Day to Evening or Evening to Night that the color temperature will change, but I'm trying to get it to turn on to a certain color temp depending on time.

Here's what I'm working with so far. If I run actions it works but won't work when I turn on the lights.

Office Light Rule 1
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I've tried both the Circadian Daylight and Room Lighting apps and they don't seem to do it.

Any direction is appreciated.

#2

If the hue bulbs are paired to HE and are all on the same fixture I'd change your trigger from ALL to ANY. It is unlikely that ALL the lights will come on (and report on) at precisely the same time. And I would add a delay to allow all the lights to come fully on and be ready to take commands.

If the hue bulbs are paired to a Hue hub using the stock integration, you'll pretty much always see a delay since the integration polls the Hue hub, the Hue hub does not push an event. CoCoHue has the option with newer Hue firmware to do it a bit differently.

You might also consider replacing that dump switch with a smart-bulb-aware smart switch.

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#3

Also... what happens if the switch gets turned on when the required expression is false? The bulbs will come on with whatever previous color they were set to - in other words you may never see them change once they're set to 5k.

#4

Thanks for the reply. I have similar rules for Evening and Night, so based on time, one of the three is always true. I'll switch them from all to any. The bulbs are paired to the Hue hub.

I've thought about changing out the switch but brown/bronze smart switches are fairly difficult to come by and I really haven't put much effort into searching for one.

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I couldn't do white, it'd mess up the decor...I have many leather-bound books and my office smells of rich mahogany.

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#5

Leather-bound books and rich mahogany would not lend themselves to a white switch, I agree.

Here's the gotcha. The standard Hue integration only polls the Hue hub every minute. So you could end up with a situation where you turn on the light and a minute later the color changes.

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#6

But you could try CoCoHue, a third party integration. It has a "push" option that may work better for you.

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#7

FYI the Zooz zen72 zwave smart bulb compatible switch does have an optional black paddle... but still won't look quite the same.

#8

Appreciate all the info. I'll give CoCoHue a shot.

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#9

Test the trigger change first though. It may interrupt the feng shui of your office if there's a delay but at least you'll know it works.

#10

You might also be interested in Virtual Prestaging. The way I use it is:

  • A virtual bulb whose color temperature is adjusted to whatever I want the CT to be across the day
  • The app will set the color temperature of the selected (physical) bulbs to that of the (virtual) source whenever they turn on or the source changes

Then your logic to set the source doesn't have to worry about when things get turned on/off, and the lights will adjust immediately when turned on.

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Download the Hubitat app