I am new to using global variables and am having a heck of a time trying to get my desired response.
I created a bunch of virtual switches to control physical dimmers. These are all now working as expected where a change in the virtual switch causes the real switch/dimmer to update.
I would now like to update the virtual dimmer based on the physical dimmer changing. As I am using the problematic non-plus GE z-wave switches I am using polling to see when the devices are changed locally.
My plan:
Trigger Event for Rule is when Virtual Dimmer (level) != Actual Dimmer (level)
Set either a local or global variable based on the Actual Dimmer (level)
Set Virtual Dimmer (level) to local or global variable.
The method I am trying to use is Action: Set Variable: (Local or Global Variable neither are working): Select Operation (Device Attribute): Devices. Unfortunately none of my devices are populating here, similarly if I go to Select Operation (sensor value) and select dimmer level, none of my dimemrs are available.
Why are you doing all of this? You don't have to create virtual switches to change a dimmer level.
If you really want to a have a device you can turn on to get a dimmer to a specific level, look at the Scenes app. This will allow you to do this and the scene device will be turned on/off automatically.
But at first glance, I would say that you are pulling a Rube Goldberg. You seem to be completely over-complicating things. You should not need multiple virtual devices for every real device. That is going to quickly bog your hub down in updating all these virtual devices unnecessarily.
What driver are you using for the device? This should not be.
What happens if you click where it says "Click to edit"? You haven't gone into the selection yet.
How will this help you get local changes into the hub?
I understand it is very unnecessarily complicated. I am trying to make the most of the problematic switches I have been using for the last year. I am getting tired of Alexa telling me devices aren’t responding after the action has been carried out (on occasion 1-2x a day), I think the virtual switches will fix this (as I think the issue is the reporting back of the successful state change from z-wave dimmer).
I am now using both generic z-wave dimmers and virtual dimmers in my setup that is why I am surprised they did not show up in Rule Machine.
I am expecting to get the local changes at switches/dinners into hub by z-wave polling the respective old ge devices.
Got to the bottom of that issue. I was misreading the naming of variables, and adding the % signs around the name when creating it, rather than just when I wanted to call out the level. Once I changed the name to not have a % sign, the devices populated under lists.
