Motion Lighting Problem

đź’ˇ Lighting Motion Lighting
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Just moving to Hubitat from Smartthings. I built a night light rule in Rule Machine to set a light on a dimmer to 10% when activated by a motion sensor between certain times when the bedroom light is off; it turns off after 5 minutes.

I had this working in Smartthings for years, and it's pretty simple. Last night (day 1 of the rule), the motion sensor turned-on the light at 100%. I dimmed it manually, but it went on at 100% when my wife got up.

Now that I can see again, I hope someone can point out any issues with the rule.

Thanks!

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It’s not your rule. It’s your dimmer. Some dimmers, like the GE one I just tested it on need to be turned on before they will follow the set level command. You can either send an on command followed by the level, or toggle “level prestaging” if that’s an option in the driver (in which case you will need to send the “on” command after the set level). The former doesn’t prevent you from being blinded by bright light before it dims, so if you’re going that route, have the light dim to 10% before shutting off.
You could also install Lights on Motion Plus (LOMP) from Hubitat Package Manager (HPM) or find the link in the forum. This is actually what I use with my GE dimmers. I have it set to dim to different levels before turning off depending on what mode the hub is in. The author @bertabcd1234 has several apps for Hubitat that are excellent. I’ve been using this and his CoCoHue integration for years now and he keeps them well maintained.

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Hmmmm - thanks for the comments. So do I understand from your comments that Hubitat works differently in this regard than Smartthings?

Prestaging is an option in the device setup, so I did turn it on.

I'll look at the suggested apps too. Hopefully tonight will be different.

Thanks!

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Whoa, this is not correct! All dimmers should respond to a setLevel command, and that should turn on the dimmer.

@user3988 This should work, and there should not be any difference than ST. What kind of dimmer is it? Please test the dimmer from its device page, and see if setLevel 10 works as expected there.

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It's a GE Zigbee dimmer. Probably 4 years old. Never had any issues with it, and I couldn't poke holes in the simple logic.

The device is using the GE Zigbee Dimmer driver.

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That is definitely odd. I have a whole plethora of GE dimmer devices and none of them act that way. Every one of them I have will turn on when given a set level command if off.

Edit: all of my GE devices are z-wave though, not zigbee.

It could be a driver issue, quirk, or design decision if you are using a user driver for your device. Or maybe that is just how that particular device works, and I've just never seen that. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Does it work from the device page?

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Well the switch turns on/off from the device page.

I set the level to 10, and it seems that nothing changes. Tried cycling the powe after doing so and no change.

Is it possible that Hubitat is just different with some devices?

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No, something else is going on. Turn OFF the light from the device page. Then give it a SetLevel 10 command. What happens?

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Using the standard driver which I think defaulted when I added the switch.

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Nothing changes in the info area of the device page. The on/off status changes, but not the level.

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Pretty much all my switches and dimmers are Z-Wave. I probably got a deal on this on.

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Open another tab with Logs. Take a screenshot of what happens when you do these steps:

  1. Turn OFF the light from the device page,
  2. SetLevel 10 from the device page.

Post the logs screenshot.

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15

Learning a bit here,,,,,,,,, tried it again from the device page and the level does change.

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OK, good. So the device is OK. Turn it off again from the device page.

Now for the rule: Turn on Action logging in the rule. Then hit the Run Actions button in the rule, and look at the logs the rule generates.

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I'll build a new rule to exclude some of the conditions

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All versions on these that ive tested will turn on from off using a setLevel command

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Just to close the loop on this, I finally gave up on my GE switch. I had a Zooz Z-Wave dimmer "in inventory", so I switched it out.

Everything is fine now.

Thanks all for your help.

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