Good morning all,
Looking for some more help with Room Lighting, trying to understand this app.
Here is the setup and what I am looking for. We have two lamps in the bedroom with smart bulbs. The lamps are plugged into standard outlets, not switched. Several goals I would like to get out of this, 1. Whenever they are turned on, they set to a certain brightness level and white "color". 2. When mode is evening, turn on and then turn off at night. 3. At night, when turned on, set to a certain color and level.
First question, are those all possible with one instance of Room Lighting? Second, in my current setup, i can get the bulbs to the correct level/color, but not able to turn on or off directly with the RL app. I use the RL to set level/color and have a Rule that turns them off and on based on Mode. All works well, would like to streamline into one App. Other note, we have a button that turns them on or off by the nightstands for times the light is needed outside of evening Automation.
Will test tonight....but ifI found my error as far as not turning on. Is there a way to setup where I do not want the lights automated or turned on during the Day mode for example, but want them to be turned on to a certain level if they are triggered by a switch? I do want the lights to be turned on automatically for Evening Mode.
Thinking this might be too much variable and best to leave it how it is currently setup. Using RL to set level when triggered by the button but trigger the automated on and off by a Rule.
And realizing my screen shot was after I reverted back....it does not have a means to Activate, which previously was Mode Changed....will test more tonight.
At the bottom of your first screenshot, the "Command with Activator Device" entry is blank - if you enter a name there, that creates an activation device that can be used as switch (in other rule apps) to activate the RL.
In case you didn't know about it, here's the documentation link for RL:
Thanks all, something is just not triggering the bulbs on. Everything works fine, levels adjust, hue changes, just not turning on. The state shows the red circle.
Below are is the RL setup and the log after I manually turned them off then ran the Mode change.
Means to activate should only include "Evening"
The Limit Activation should only be set to "Day" per your prior explanation.
How are you turning on the lamps? Controlling the smart bulb via a smart switch or remote? Or manually turning the lamp on and off (cutting power to the bulbs)?
To test the RL setup, at the bottom of the page first click "Turn Off", and then when you refresh the page it should no longer say "Active" at the top.
Once you have that then click "Activate" at the bottom of the page and see if the bulbs come on. You could also get some logs from that as well. If you could get logs from a larger screen it would be much easier to read. I hate looking at mobile screenshots.
I will play with this more. It seems to be working as intented (not meaning it is setup correctly), I want the settings for each Mode to be adjusted when the light turns on via a button controller, maybe need to put the button into the Means to activate. The only Mode I want to auto turn on is Evening.
I am turning them on using a button controller, QuadMote or something like that. The power remains on to the lamp/bulb.
Yes, that is exactly what I did for the test and logs. Turned off the instance so it was not indicating active. Changed the Mode to Evening and you can see the results. Everything works, except the bulbs do not actually turn on. Settings adjust, level/temp.
Have you tried adding the "Command Devices On/Off Irrespective of reported state (Force)" option?
I was having trouble with a few of my older bulbs not reporting properly, and this fixed it. So now, it is part of all my RL instances
I will add it to my next attempt! Thank you. Thinking maybe it just a bulb setting or "issue" with the actual smart bulb. Everything else is working and triggering correctly as I am expecting. In my experience, the bulbs have been the most unreliable as far as consistent responses or consistent "reaction" to commands across various product lines.
That was my experience on my older bulbs (original OSRAM). I have not had as much issue with more recently manufactured bulbs. But then, I have made it a standard practice to add that line just in case.
The "Adjust with mode changes" will take care of setting the lights per mode IF the RL is "Activated" already. The means to Activate should ONLY list when you want it automatically turned on, so as you said it should only have Evening.
Yes you could either put the button into the means to activate, or you could have a rule in button controller that activates the RL directly, either way would work.
It appears in the logs you posted that the RL instance was already "Activated" (even though the lights were off). I can tell because the log says it is "Adjusting" for Evening, and not that it activated it. If the mode before that also shows the lights should be on maybe it is assuming you have manually turned the lights off so it did not turn them back on again. You did not show your full mode configuration for the RL so I am not sure.
The "Force" option might fix that issue, not totally sure. Staff recommends only using that if you really need it, normally should not be necessary.
I think you also need to work on the means to Turn Off. If you have a button that turns the lights off, you should have that button turn them off via RL and not directly, this way the RL will be reset back to inactive.
There are other tricks as well to make sure the RL instance deactivates when the lights have been turned off.
Here is an example of my Kitchen which uses different scenes for each mode.
Typically this RL instance is activated in the morning via a wall button or switch and stays active all day. The light adjust automatically based on the mode. It is then turned back off again via a button or switch when we go to bed.
This shows two of the mode settings, you can see I even have one light that turns off during the day but then it will come back on at evening time (not shown).
Ok looking at it again I think it is expecting that setting the level will turn the bulb on, this is how most devices behave. In fact sending an ON command and a level command together can sometimes cause issues with other device.
So I agree that the Force option may be what you need. I think that will force it to send all the commands for every change, hopefully it will send the On command along with the level that way.
Here is my Kitchen when activated, it sets the level for the dimmers and the only ON is for a switch.
There is no "Adjusting" log entries until it gets the Day mode later, so not sure why your is adjusting right away unless you were changing the mode around.
Thanks...kind of what I was thinking of as well. The Hub was in Day Mode (with the Day settings) when I changed it to Evening. So it needed to adjust the level down for evening to 10 from day where it is 80.
Was able to get it working this weekend. The Force seemed to do the trick.
I ended up resorting back to the original setup. I was able to get everything working, but the only downside was I did not know a way to be able to control each bedside lamp independently. I was using them turning on as a trigger to the activations, so either they were both on, or both off. WAF didn't approve of that....
