I use 5000k LED lighting in my house which during the day/evening is great but as it gets later it’s a bit intense. To alleviate this I currently have a rule at 8pm to turn down the lights from 100 to 50. Then another at 9 to turn from 50 to 25. This makes a huge difference at night. Now the 2 questions...
If we GoTo bed early and this turn the lights off, they will automatically turn on to the preprogrammed 50 and 25 at 8 and 9 respectively. I would love a restriction to check the current light setting and if it’s not ON then skip the rule so the lights don’t turn on when I’m in bed.
Second question...instead of making 2 different rules to change from 100 to 50 and then to 25, can I instead slowly fade from 100 to 25 over the course of a few hours? This way I could start the slow fade at 730 and hit 50 by 8pm and 25 by 9pm. Would be nice to have a more gradual fade. I actually thought this was an option in the past but didn’t see it recently.
Do you use modes? If you have a night mode, then you could restrict the lights to only interact when in any mode but night mode. You could also add to the rule "AND kitchen light is on then ... " But I find it more beneficial to base light interaction based on mode. I have the following modes:
Quiet Tiime - covers evenings and mornings when not everyone is out of bed, but people are up.
Night : Everyone is in bed
Home: everyone is up and moving
Away : everyone is gone
This allows me to define how lights will interact in the house as other things trigger the modes. Presence or phones being docked on chargers. Works well for us.
I also thought that there was a fade over time available, but I've just turned off my hub to fix my zigbee mesh, so I can't look right now.
Depending on your bulbs, some have an option in the driver to fade. you could do it from there if you have one that supports a fade option.
I have a similar rule, actually mine fades up over minutes, rather than down over hours.
Select Trigger Events
When time is 06:30
Select Actions to Run
IF (Bedside lamp is off AND
Ceiling lamp is off) THEN
Color Temperature: Bedside lamp: 2202: 1
Fade Bedside lamp up to 100 over 7 minutes with 4.0 seconds interval
Color Temperature: Ceiling lamp: 2202: 1 --> delayed: 0:05:00
Fade Ceiling lamp up to 100 over 7 minutes with 4.0 seconds interval --> delayed: 0:05:00
END-IF
the IF condition is there so that in case I've already manually turned the lights on before 6:30 am then the fade won't kick in, there's a small issue with that, e.g. if I've unplugged the bedside light, so it's not present as a zigbee device, then the bedside lamp is not treated as being "off" so it stops the rule triggering, is there a way to test for "not present"? I couldn't find one ...
You could try using the Circadian Daylight app. While the change in temperature won't help you it does have the ability to dim lights over a time period without turning the lights on.
