Can Hubitat create a circadian-lighting schedule for smart color bulbs so switches can be used like normal?

Hello all,
Hoping someone can help me confirm that Hubtat can do what I'm trying to do. I've outfitted my home with Philips Hue color bulbs and Hue dimmer remotes. I have custom Hue scenes set up to activate at certain times of day, but there are two major problems. (A Hue scene sets color temp and brightness on a per-bulb level for a certain room.)

  1. If the lights were turned off with the Hue dimmer, when a scheduled scene change takes place, the lights are automatically turned on. If I turned them off, I want them to stay off (please note I am never cutting power at the dumb switch).

  2. I need an on-press of my dimmer remote to turn on the scene appropriate for that time of day. I understand Hue dimmers do not pair to any hub but the Hue hub and so won't work for this (right?) so I'm ready to replace the ones I have with the Sylvania Lightify Dimming Switch.

If someone can confirm I can accomplish this using Hubitat, I'll be ordering one today! Thank you!

Actually, the Hue Dimmers CAN be paired to the HE hub (and they work really well; I have a few of them paired to my HE Hub). You can setup Rule Manager (or Button Controller) to keep lights off when you press a button and reenable timings/motion when another button is pressed.

As for the Circadian lighting, there's an app for that: [Release] [App] Circadian Daylight (v0.80) (Port)

:slight_smile:

[EDIT]: Regarding Hue Scenes, those won't map over using the Heu Integration, however, you can recreate them using the Groups and Scenes app. Basically, it's a matter of shifting the values over from Hue to HE and letting HE control them.

Awesome! I figured the Hue Scenes themselves couldn't be ported, but recreated. I'll definitely check out the app you linked to, but in case I want something a little different, I'm assuming you're saying that I do it with Hubitat custom rules while avoiding my current problems?

Also, great news about the Philips Dimmers - that'll save me $50!

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Correct. You could recreate all the logic in Rule Machine, but using the app would be the easier path as @adamkempenich did a great job with the logic. Plus, coding in HE is simply Groovy, so fairly easy. As for the on/off issues, I would go with Button Controller as it handles all the logic of turning on/off the lights and suspending the schedules. It might get a little tricky using the Circadian Lighting app with Button Controller, but I'm thinking @adamkempenich might have some ideas to handle that.

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I'm not sure how the Hue scenes work, unfortunately. I have my bulbs all directly attached to my Hubitat hub. But ... I don't see any reason this wouldn't work.

Circadian daylight simply changes your devices' color temperatures/brightness when you turn them on, but there's quite a bit of flexibility with it. I'd use rule machine separately to schedule turning devices on/off at a certain time, and CD will handle the rest :slight_smile:

A big update in the works, too, adding the following features:

  • Added brightness-per-mode
  • Added Min/Max brightness
  • Fixed zip-code
  • Adding disable brightness changes when manually pressed
  • Added disable when switch off option
  • Added LogDebug
  • Added DescriptionText
  • Updated settings language
  • Adding minimum/maximum sunrise/sunset times
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Very cool, thanks! I just placed my order for a hub. I'll try out your app and report back.

Also cool to hear it's easy to program custom apps in Groovy. I look forward to getting started!

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I do something similar but currently just use temperature per mode in rule machine. Basically if it turns on whilst in this mode go to this Kelvin :smile:.
You would just do when this button pressed then use temperature per mode a trigger.

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Hi, you mentioned you have your bulbes directly connected to your HE. Are those zwave bulbes? People here do not recommend it on zigbee. I want to get rid of the Hue bridge... so maybe your set up is a working example?

Mine are but they are my only ZigBee devices, only then is it a good idea to have them directly paired.

All of my bulbs are Wi-Fi (MagicHome) or Zigbee (both Hue and Osram).

As @BorrisTheCat said, It’s not recommended to do it this way, but I’ve never had an issue with any repeaters or anything. I have a bunch of other Zigbee devices on my network, too. My bulbs are always on, though. I digitally turn them off and on with the switches I built in my SmartThings Button teardown thread.

Okey then. maybe I try it room by room from unimportant to more used.

thanks.
also thanks @BorrisTheCat

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Just getting started with my set up using RM and Sylvania Lightify switches. Strangely upon first press, the Hue bulb goes to a full bright, soft white (what seems to be) default state, and only upon second press of the same button does it go to my setting per the active condition in RM. You run into this at all? I'm still hacking at it...

I ran into a similar problem, but with sengled bulbs, (and they simply didn't turn on after first press rather than a white default even though the rule activated per the logs) so I think we can probably rule out the bulbs as the cause. Do you use the groups and scenes app? I found that if I remove the bulbs from a group then reprogram the rule to perform the action on each bulb individually it fixes the problem. This is of course a workaround.

Nope but if sounds like you haven't configured the switch on hubitat yet. Make sure you click configure on the device page for the switch then do the special button press to wake up the switch. What are you using to take the button command? RM or button controller.

Hmmm... groups and scenes app? I should probably check that out. Bear with me, I'm very green at this (though I work with computers for a living so hopefully it will quickly click (no pun intended)). What I'm doing is all in RM - just checking the checkbox next to each of my room's bulbs and setting the desired HSL config.

I may not have. I added the switch (for clarity's sake, please note this is a "smart dimmer remote" not a smart switch that is wired to my electric panel) as a device, and then I went straight to RM and created a triggered event for a press of button 1 and a press of button 2. Sounds like there was an intermediate step I missed...?

RM. Is there an advantage to using a button controller as a middle-man? Is button controller a virtual device?

Haha I get it, I'm new too, lots of stuff to explore! I think we have different issues then, good luck.

Thanks for the luck and the comments. It's at least helpful to know this happens with other bulbs besides just mine.

possibly, i had to do it on my osram switches.
Go to the device page and 1st confirm what driver its using. If it's lightify smart switch then click on the configure button after pressing the 2 configure buttons on the switch (can't remember which ones, so check the manual)

button controller is just a basic when this button is pressed do this, when its held do this. With RM its more when this is pressed and these conditions match then do this.

So if it's simple button controller app is what you want to use.

I'm not home now so can't look exactly, but I do know the driver was coming up as specifically Sylvania Lightify. I'll go through the configuration. So what I'm concluding from your comments is that if my rules are still acting wonky after I configure the switch, I may be able to fix that using a button controller app. In that scenario, do I then add the button controller to my RM rule rather than the switch itself?
I appreciate all the help!!