Room Lighting Not Activating Properly

Gotcha. I'll have to see if I can rework some of what I was doing with RM to offload over to RL. I think the only thing missing in this particular case is that I would have the RM rule turn off two of the lights first as an indicator that all the lights are about to turn off. Since I can't split the difference in RL, I think I'll have to supplement with an adjusted RM rule.

Although, that does bring up another question. If I swap over to using a motion sensor for activation, I presume that means that motion will result in the lights being set according to the schedule. How would I overcome that for one off situations like the other night? e.g. normal schedule would have the lights set to red, but I want them white for a half hour.

This is correct. Other Means to Activate use the table settings for the current mode/period.

Not sure, but there would be a number of ways to do this.

1 Like

One last follow-up on this. I noticed that RL will send the on command prior to sending the color/CT setting. If the lights are shifting colors, there's a half second or so where they come on at the previous setting and then transition. That could hurt acceptance factor for my household given that it could result in a light coming of for a quick second at 100% bright white instead of 20% red. I've worked around it by drawing back to just using the RL instance as a group so I can send the color command (resulting in the lights coming on anyhow). At least for the Hue lights, that does result in them turning on at the right color/brightness from the start.

I don't know what you are referring to. Please show screenshots of logs and the app to illustrate your concern.

There's the logs. My experience was, I walked into the bathroom and the lights kicked on for about a half second at full brightness and CT mode before shifting to red and dimming.

Recreating this in RM and only selecting the set color option results in the light coming on at the intended color/brightness.

You are commanding Bath Vanity Lights multiple times. Try only commanding it once instead.

Just to make sure I wasn't crazy. I set this back up using my office fan. It has two Hue bulbs imported as a group with RL being the only thing controlling it.

I set the light to CT 3000k, 100% brightness, and then turn it off. I updated the RL activation settings to have it turn back on red at 20%.


This is not a group then. How to use Room Lights for Groups

You need to sort out and decide how you want this to work. If you are going to use the table for activation, then you probably don't want to activate it with the Activation Device.

I'm not sure what you mean. The bulbs are a group on the Hue bridge, pulled in as a single device using the built-in integration. The Office RL instance doesn't have an activator device.

Ah, then you're looking for answers in the wrong place. Room Lights sent a single command, based on your logs: setColor(). Everything that happened after that has nothing to do with Room Lights.

You could verify what you're seeing by just doing a setColor command on the device page for Office Fan Light.

Yep...must've been placebo for the bathroom whenever I shifted to RM.

No matter how I turn them on, it happens.

All of this becomes so much easier to figure out when you use the logs to answer your questions. The apps, by and large, show in the logs exactly what they do. In this case, since the app only did the one thing it was supposed to do, it couldn't very well be the problem, right?

I use the logs constantly to find out what is actually going on.

You're right. I think I was just hyper-focused on the thought that RM fixed the issue and glazed over that the order of the commands was coming from the device, not the app.

I keep hearing of unhappy outcomes using Hue groups. But I don't have any so wouldn't know from experience.

Well...since you cracked the door...what do you use, if anything?

For what? For a group of Zigbee color bulbs I use Room Lighting group with Zigbee Group Messaging --> instant on (not that I really care). My house is mostly Lutron, so Lutron is dealing with groups of lights.

I meant for RGBW bulbs in general.

I just tried pulling in the individual bulbs. Same behavior. These might go back in the box, but man, is it hard finding a single solution to cover all the different types of bulbs.

There's good bulbs and not so good bulbs, for sure. I guess it depends on what is 'good' for you. I don't have a lot of color bulbs, as my house just isn't set up to use them for the most part -- a few bedside lamps. The last ones I bought were Sengled, and those work just fine.

1 Like

Appreciate the input and insights as always. I'll let this thread die and go poke someone else about the Hue portion.