I'd like to preset light dim levels based on the time of day so when the light is turn on either at the wall switch or via the hub it comes on at the prescribed level. I think that raises 2 questions.
Is there a way to preload a dim level without turning on the light?
I believe this might be based on the wireless protocol or manufacturer.
What's the best way to set the dim level based on time of day?
I'm sure this can be done via RM or maybe one of you experts have developed an app.
Are you looking in the right place? In firmware version 2.2.3.145, that informatino is shown on the "Apps" page under the listings for the Groups and Scenes app. I don't think its shown in the Rule itself.
These show up once your Scene is captured. So the "On" means that whatever that setting is is the current state for those devices. "Not Set" means those devices are not in those particular states. Hope that makes sense.
Only if your lights support "Level pre-staging," which some Zigbee (and at least one Z-Wave, though I don't know if it made it into the official driver) bulbs do. I still avoid this myself, as I think a better approach is to include this as part of your "on" automation--set the desired level (or CT or whatever) there.
The built-in Motion Lighting/Mode Lighting app can handle this, but this is tied to mode (which many people use as a proxy for time) rather than strictly time. I see you have a few other ideas above that might work for you too. There are lots of ways, as usual with Hubitat, and RM will of course let you do anything you want if you write a rule for it. But my suggestion is to start with the apps created specifically for this purpose, since that will be much easier if they already meet your needs.
With the Inovelli switches you can set a default level for z-wave and local commands. With the Inovelli drivers you can make that setting a child device.
then you can write a rule like this.
now anytime I turn on a light is it at a specific level per mode.
OK, I know this is outside the scope of what you are asking about but I'd like to offer what I've done.
First, you don't say what lights you wish to operate on so I'll assume they are indoors. like mine, and I also factor in the current illuminance in the affected area which in my case is a hallway.
Second, I got fed up with time based dimming because it doesn't handle cloudy days/moments so I've gone to illuminance based dimming. I average 2 sensors, front and back yard.
Third, to handle the issue of setting dim level turning the light on I store the level in a local variable and then retrieve it and set the dimmer to it when I want the light to come on.
Lastly, I moved all of my processing to Node-red and this example is the biggest reason why.
This is why I have my modes based on Occupancy/Activity (Home/away/Sleep) and a Virtual switch set by Lux for dark/light. This could easily be a Virtual dimmer if I wanted more granular control
I've always been interested in employing illuminance. What devices or service are you using for it?
I can see how a rule could use the variable to turn a light on at a specific dim level but would this work with a wall switch or say Alexa or Dashboard?
Haven't messed with connecting up node-red but its on my list. Maybe this will give me a good excuse to jump in.
I think the core issue I'm going to have is most of my fixed lights are controlled by GE z-wave plus wall dimmers which don't have a way to pre-set a dim level. So even if I find an elegant way to define dim levels based on illuminance or mode I'm going to have an issue pre-setting the dim level.
One outdoor sensor is the Hue outdoor motion sensor. It reports illuminance infrequently even though I've set the granularity on it's device page to 1 Lux. My workaround is to do a refresh on it every 5 minutes between sunrise and sunset.
The rest of my illuminance measurements are provided by @iharyadi's Hubitat with Homemade Temperature, Humidity, Pressure and Light sensor These things are fast with the updates! So much so that I had to provide some integration (the math kind) on the illuminance reading from the sensor in my hallway to avoid a false trigger from my shadow as I walk past it.
As for services...none. I'm very much a local-only guy and I block many devices at my firewall, including HE, from ever getting to the Internet. That said, I obviously have to allow the connections briefly to get updates to any of those devices.
Anything I say to address that would be speculation because I don't have an Echo and I didn't even consider using the dashboard. Sorry.
It is very powerful and not too hard to use...once you get the hang of it. It's way different than doing things in HE (note: I have never tried either HA or WebCore). That's both good and bad. A very common comment on NR is it's a
Tip: run it natively if you can and in Docker only if you have to. Some here will say Docker is the only way but I disagree (unless a person has other apps in it already) because it's one more layer that needs to be learned and managed.
If you do decide to dive into the hole you'll want to check out a couple topics here...
And there are many others, just search for node-red.
