Use smart dimmer to trigger secondary smart bulbs?

Well, then yes, what you are talking about is easy if you have Hubitat. :slight_smile:

What you are wanting to do is a very common automation available in most platforms. I have several.

Great! Could you tell me what switch I could buy that would accomplish this? I looked at a TP-Link dimmer (HS220), but I don't believe it can be used to trigger other actions.

There are a lot of different possibilities if you buy a Hubitat. Without one, I have no idea.

Assuming I'll get a Hubitat, could you point me in the direction of some dimmers that would work?

There are dozen of possibilities. Where are you located? Are you looking for Z-wave, Zigbee, Lutron? Any dimmer would work.

I'm in Canada. The only real criteria I have are that I'd like it to be relatively simple to setup, and I'd like it to be as inexpensive as possible.

I found the following dimmer on Amazon, would it work?

If I got that and a Hubitat, would that be all I need?

Might I suggest watching this YouTube video of the most recent “Hubitat Live” show that the HE team produced? The theme was “back to basics” and if you’re very new at home automation, it should fill in some of the background info you will need.

The GE switch would be fine. Most mesh dependent systems, like ZigBee and Z-Wave, like to have lots of neighbours (Canadian spelling) to work well. If this is the only thing you have in the beginning, you will need to be aware of the distance to the hub and physical interferences (walls, furniture, and appliances).
I would suggest you begin some overall plan on things you can envision incorporating into your automation project. For inspiration, you might want to look through the officially supported devices list.

Thanks everyone for the responses! This community seems very helpful and makes me feel good about deciding to go with Hubitat.

I have one final question. As I mentioned, in the op, I would like to have the switch control a few LIFX bulbs. I understand that LIFX isn't directly supported by Hubitat, and I will need to make use of an add on driver. How difficult is that to install and configure? Also, I currently make use of a feature in the LIFX app called scenes which lets you set up each bulb how you like, and then save them all as a preset. I am then able to 'load' the presets directly from Google Home. Would I be able to retain that type of functionality with Hubitat?

More generally, could I create custom google home commands that would be able to launch Hubitat scripts (sorry if I'm using the wrong terminology).

Thanks again for all the help.

Installing community created apps and drivers is quite quick and simple. I have not used LIFX lights and have no experience with the drivers but you can create groups or scenes combining multiple bulbs with different settings. Those groups or scenes can be triggered any number of ways including GH.

Thank you. Can you configure Hubitat to use GH to trigger any arbitrary automation?

You can either directly control devices (both level and color if supported by the device) or anything you want through virtual devices or integrations like IFTTT.

Ok, I think I get it. If I wanted to created a 'shortcut' that would automatically turn 2 of my lights orange and one of them blue with a simple voice command, I could create a virtual device to do that, and then tell Google home to turn that device on, is that right?

Thanks again for all the help. I'm about to go to Amazon and order the Hubitat!

Congratulations on your purchase! I'm in Toronto and own two HE hubs. Best investment in Smart Home ever. Sounds like your last question is about speaking to GH and triggering an automation, is that correct? If so, then yes, anything that HE can control, you can start by speaking to GH or Alexa. Further to that, Alexa can now also do things, like speak custom phrases or other Alexa routine actions, when a device is triggered in HE.

There's also a possibility to control anything that GH can control (but HE cannot), from HE. This is a more advanced project called Google Assistant Relay. It's not something most beginners will find easy, but once you have your feet wet, you might want to explore adding it. It's a very valuable tool to have at your disposal.

Thank you. The purchase is complete, and I should have the device in a few days!

What I was asking about was not so much the ability to control individual devices via GH, but rather the ability to set up multiple things (ie. Turn on 2 smart bulbs to a preset colour, 1 to a different colour, 1 smart dimmer to 50%,etc.) via a single voice command.

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Oh, that's all really simple. Setting the bulbs to a colour is possible, not all bulbs support setting the colour before turning on, so you may end up with a bulb that comes on to one colour briefly before switching to the colour your rule is configured for.

I use those dimmers and switches with the custom Botched1 drivers to enable double tap for turning on and off other lights. It provides faster response than mirroring the switch.

I like me some double tap. :+1:

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