Have a multipurpose space where our home media center is at with a projector. When watching that, the preferred viewing is 5% with some of the recessed lights, and those bulbs between the seating and the screen totally off. When not watching something, prefer all bulbs to be synced power level on the dimmer.
All lights are on one zen dimmer switch. admitting I’m more into smart switches than bulbs (except in lamps).
Will I need to buy bulbs for those spots/bulbs to get the total blackout when watching the screen to work with the dimmer?
Will all need to be smart bulbs to ensure the bulb sync when not watching something?
What confusion will a dimmer and bulbs cause to the household when not watching something?
If you want some bulbs on a switch to be on and others to be off, they will indeed need to be bulbs. However, the dimmer will need to be always on at 100% as dimming smart bulbs may damage them.
Some switch support an « always on » mode which you would need to use. Then you would need to setup the switch to control the bulbs via a button controller app to reproduce the normal functionality of the dimmer.
You could use a separate rule to set the recessed lights to 5% and turn off those between the seating and the screen, and otherwise be synched.
Are you using a harmony hub by chance? I have mine setup so that when harmony turns on the lights dim down. If the harmony is off they dim full. I can do this from the switch or the motion sensor. The inovellis support a smart bulb mode. So like he said, the load stays on always allowing you to use smart bulbs, but the switch can still be setup to control them via hubitat.
