Am new to a smart home and selected HE due running locally,
however have run into a challenge,
Currently using scene transitions to adjust outside lighting throughout the day based on modes, wasnt stable to with simple automation but Rule Machine works very well. However, I cannot get an added step to function.
Goal:
Step 1: Dim lights gradually to zero (must use 1% as zero causes weird behavior) on mode transition (works well with scene transitions in RM)
Step 2: Turn Dimmer switches off (works well with a delay in RM)
Step 3: Set Dimmer Value to 100% incase lights must be quickly activated (cannot get this to work through the use of a scene)
Any suggestions on how to make this work effectively, my coding skills are poor so I will need to use a system already in place.
This isn't easy: doing a "Set Level" command from Hubitat will, by convention, also turn on the bulb or dimmer. Some drivers have a "level prestaging" option (check the device page for yours) that will allow this to work without turning on the lights, but then you run into nearly every stock app assuming that a "Set Level" will turn on the lights, so many of them then won't work for your lighting automations. (If you're using a rule or custom app for this already, then, of course, you can do whatever you want.) Because of that, I normally don't recommend doing this, and you'll see lots of people here asking about problems like this when they do.
What might work better: what kind of dimmer is this? Some send "scene" or button events to Hubitat when the paddle is physically pressed. You could use that event to set the level to 100% instead of trying to stage this beforehand. Some also report physical vs. digital "switch" events (check your "Events" button/tab on the device page), in which case you could also use a rule that response to physical switch "on" that sets the level to 100%. Even if yours doesn't, you might even be able to get away with a rule that sets it to 100% after any "on" event, though you'd be the one to know whether you ever might want to set this bulb to less than that from an "off" state. Finally, some dimmers have this as an option in their firmware, though not many (Inovelli is one I can think of that does; I think Zooz has an option where double-tap can go to full brightness, which might be another workaround, though on "scene"-capable devices you can do the same from the hub).
Setting the level with RM seems to work to stage the lights,
Ran into another problem with this, when the next scene transition is activated it transitions from the staged set level to the next one which is somewhat interesting. It seems to skip the starting scene of the transition.
